This time, eight wasn’t enough.
This time, eight wasn’t enough.
On a night when the leading scorer was a bit off his game and the leading rebounder was out with the flu, Hawaii Hilo took a hard fall Thursday night at Hilo Civic, losing 89-85 to Holy Names, a team holding up the bottom of the Pacific West Conference, coming off its first conference win of the season.
Make that two in a row for the Hawks (3-14, 2-8 in the PWC), who trailed throughout the first half and then thoroughly outplayed the Vulcans (6-9, 4-5), who lost their third consecutive home game with first place Hawaii Pacific coming to town Saturday.
The Vulcans have been playing with a rotation of nine players all season, but without leading rebounder and second leading scorer Brian Ishola — out with the flu — it was a different team, especially in the second half.
Jewels Sanders had all 15 of his points in the second half for Holy Names while UHH struggled mightily to score from any place on the floor.
UHH coach GE Coleman used a variety of defenses in the second half to try slow down the Hawks but none of them were effective as Holy Names poured through 64 percent of its field goal attempts in the second half (18-for-28) and tossed 58 points on the scoreboard in the last 20 minutes.
It was Holy Names that found defensive tac tics that changed the game around in the last 20 minutes. The Hawks held the Vulcans without a field goal for a stretch of 4:56 early in the second half that allowed them to take the lead and once they got it, there were no give backs.
Apart from an opening 3-pointer by the visitors, the Vulcans led throughout the first half, thanks mostly to the 16-for-16 effort from the foul line that helped offset the absence of Ishola whose work on the boards was missed, though Holy Names was able to gain just a 20-19 advantage.
Berinobis was in free flight in the first half, matching Parker Farris with 12 points, leading both teams, but Berinobis also grabbed six boards, also tops for both squads in the first half.
Farris, averaging 24 points a game, managed 28 by the time it was over, but it was not one of his better shooting games. Farris finished 8-for-20 from the floor and was 3-for-9 from beyond the 3-point line, but he made 9 of his 10 free throw attempts.
Darius Johnson-Wilson had 19 for Hawaii Hilo and Randan Berinobis added 17, but the scoring fell of dramatically after that.