PEARL CITY - Host Pearl City survived a second-half surge by Roosevelt in a 41-36 win Saturday night to advance to Thursday's Oahu Interscholastic Association Red tournament championship at Radfrod.

The OIA tournament is in a modified double-elimination format. It was the Rough Riders' first loss of the tournament and they will play Kaimuki Tuesday at Radford following the White third-place game between Kalani and McKinley at 5 p.m.

The loser of Kaimuki-Roosevelt will be third in the tournament with the winner will play the Chargers in Thursday's title game. If the Chargers lose, the winner-take-all title game between the same teams will be Saturday at Farrington.

The Chargers, as the only unbeaten team in tournament play, should be well rested for Thursday. They will need those extra days to get their legs fresh after holding off full-court pressure of Roosevelt's defense in the second half.

"They came out and there was pressure," Pearl City coach Michael Morton said. "It created a little problems. We don't sub our guards. We just had to push."

The Chargers, whose three guards - Sabrina and Shawn Angle and Adrienne Jean Sylva - were defensed tightly by the Rough Riders in the second half. After Starr Rivera's 3-pointer with 40 seconds closed the gap to 38-34, Roosevelt thought it forced a turnover in the Chargers' backcourt, as Sabrina Angle was trapped on the sideline and stumbled out of bounds. One referee signaled it was Roosevelt's ball, but another overturned the call because he heard Morton calling for a timeout. That drained the battery from Roosevelt's motor, which went into overdrive in the second half as it had to overcome a 23-11 half-time deficit.

"It works both ways, but it just brought us down at that point," Roosevelt coach Hinano Higa said. "I kind of see that as a big game changer. We had that turnover. Our energy was there. Once we found out we lost it and they got the timeout, the energy just kind of dropped. (Our players) still wanted to win, but it's tough."

The Rough Riders, held to single-digit scoring in each of the first three quarters, scored 16 in the fourth quarter with Rivera scoring seven of her team-high 11 points in that period. But Roosevelt, which had to play more aggressively in the second half, saw Pearl City convert 9 of 11 free throws (16 of 21 overall) in the second half to maintain their lead.

Freshman Tatiana Mariano, who scored 16 fourth-quarter points to help beat Mililani earlier in the tournament, had 10 points in limited minutes because of early foul trouble. She had seven of Roosevelt's 11 first-half points.

Pearl City dominated the first half, scoring its first two field goals off of Roosevelt turnovers. At one juncture, Roosevelt hadn't scored for nearly six minutes between the first and second quarters. The Chargers scored 10 points off of turnovers in the first half.

"This game, we just got a really slow start in the first quarter," Higa said. "We sat back, we were watching. That's not our kind of basketball, so it took us a while to get started. Pearl City did a great job in handling the basketball and ran away from trouble. If we started early, things might have been different."

Sabrina Angle led the Chargers with 13 points and Tiari Walker had 10. Walker made some clutch rebounds, showing gritty determination when she needed three tries on a put-back shot in the fourth quarter.

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