IRVINE, Calif. >> Hawaii Pacific needs just one more victory to reach the NCAA Division II men’s basketball tournament for the first time.
But the top-seeded Sharks, ranked sixth nationally, had to survive an intense confrontation with fourth-seeded Chaminade before emerging with a 96-90 victory in the semifinals of the PacWest Conference’s tournament Friday night at Concordia University.
“They kept coming at us,” said guard Connor Looney, who led HPU with 23 points. “We really grinded it out. It was 40 minutes of hard-played basketball.”
Chauncey Orr contributed 22 points and 13 rebounds for the Sharks (27-2), who must beat sixth-seeded Point Loma Nazarene today to secure the NCAA berth. The Sea Lions (17-12) are the lowest seed in PacWest history to reach the tournament final.
“They are different than almost any other team in our league in how deliberate they are,” HPU coach Darren Vorderbruegge said. “They work the ball until they get the shot they want. They play high-IQ basketball. Point Loma is playing terrific basketball right now. We’ll be in for a dogfight.”
In the women’s semifinals, HPU ended its season with a 90-77 loss to Point Loma Nazarene, which will face top-seeded Cal Baptist for the tournament championship today.
Chaminade (18-11) and HPU exchanged the lead 13 times in the first 27 minutes before Elliot DeFreitas’ jumper put the Sharks ahead 60-59 with 13:11 to play.
HPU extended the margin to 67-63 before the Silverswords’ Kiran Shastri made a jumper from the left baseline and converted the ensuing free throw after getting fouled to narrow the deficit to 67-66 with nine minutes left. However, the ’Swords made only one basket in the next 7:15.
“During that stretch,” Vorderbruegge said, “we made smart plays, taking away those guys who were slashers and those guys who were shooters.”
Chaminade coach Eric Bovaird elaborated.
“They face-guard Kiran Shastri, who’s one of the best shooters in the conference, and they always have a guy chasing Rohndell Goodwin around and another guy ready to rotate over,” Bovaird said. “They do a good job of taking away a lot of opportunities we normally get against teams.”
HPU expanded its advantage to 91-80 with 41.7 seconds left. But Dantley Walker made a three-point shot with 19.2 seconds remaining, then Austin Pope stole the inbounds pass and scored on a lay-in to draw Chaminade within 92-87 with 18.2 seconds to play.
“We definitely didn’t give up until we saw triple zeros on the clock,” said Goodwin, who made all 13 of his free throws in scoring a game-high 25 points. “We were just fighting, man. We gave all we had.”
Pope finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Shastri added 13 points to end his career fifth among Chaminade’s all-time leading scorers with 1,513 points. Senior Kuany Kuany added nine points and eight rebounds to rank third in career points with 1,600 and second in career rebounds with 876.
Point Loma Nazarene 90, Hawaii Pacific 77
In the women’s semifinal, the third-seeded Sharks (21-6) held a 44-40 halftime lead but missed 10 of 14 field-goal attempts in the third quarter, while second-seeded Point Loma (24-4) made 12 of 15 shots.
Gabriella Fotu led HPU with 21 points. VeAnne Navarro contributed 17 points and Sarah Liva grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds. Roya Rustamzada led five Sea Lions in double figures with 22 points and added 10 rebounds.
