Jonny Philbrick scored 21 of his 29 points in the second half and hit the go-ahead basket with 46 seconds left as No. 8 Kailua stunned No. 5 Kahuku 50-45 on Thursday night.

Kailua (11-1 overall) closed regular-season play with a perfect 11-0 record in the OIA East, handing Kahuku its first defeat. Philbrick was nearly unstoppable off the dribble against Kahuku’s normally tough man-to-man defense.

“I’m very tired. I want to go home, spend some time with my family,” said Philbrick, a 5-foot-9 junior guard. “Kahuku’s a great team. I feel like if we played them 10 times, we’d split it. It was a great game.”

The Surfriders trailed for the first 29 minutes of the game before rallying from an 11-point deficit.

“It’s a good win for us, a good win for the guys. The first half, they got all the rebounds and dominated in the post,” Kailua coach Walter Marciel said. “We made some adjustments at halftime. We did a better job blocking out, being a little bit more patient on our offense. That was the first time we were down all year. That was a character check for our team and that’s the end result.”

Amari Westmoreland-Vendiola, the OIA East’s leading scorer, had a season-low 16 points along with 10 rebounds and three blocks. The 6-foot-3 senior sat for a key stretch of the second half with foul trouble. Leonard Ah You added 13 points and nine rebounds.

“Kailua is tough. They played hard and smart,” Kahuku coach Brandyn Akana said. “We kind of let them hang around and you can’t do that against a good team.”

Kailua also got eight points and seven rebounds from 6-foot-4 sophomore Noa Donnelly. The center came up big in the second half with six points and one crucial assist as he led a fast break and found senior Ethan Kunz for a wide-open layup to give the visiting Surfriders a 43-42 lead with three minutes remaining.

Philbrick patiently worked the wings to score more points off the dribble than any foe has scored on Kahuku’s defense. He sank two foul shots for a 45-42 lead, and Westmoreland-Vendiola answered with a putback. After Kailua’s Japheth Lilo missed two free-throw attempts, Ah You connected on one of two foul shots to tie the game at 45 with 1:24 left.

Philbrick then drove down the middle for a go-ahead bucket with 46 seconds to go and Kailua never trailed again.

Philbrick left a few seconds later with an ankle injury. On a missed shot by Ah You in the paint, Westmoreland-Vendiola crashed the offensive glass for a rebound but was tied up by Kunz and Kailua had the possession arrow in its favor.

Philbrick then hit a free throw for a 48-45 lead with 24.1 seconds remaining.

Kahuku didn’t get a shot up until Aiken Naihe missed on a 3-point try from the left wing with 10 seconds left. Philbrick rebounded and put the game away with two swishes at the charity stripe with 6.6 ticks left.

The OIA Division I playoffs begin next week. As the top two finishers in the East, Kailua and Kahuku have first-round byes.

“We’ve got the playoffs now,” Akana said. “This will be good for us.”

A spirited senior-night home crowd was rocking in the first half as Kahuku opened the game with a 13-4 run. Westmoreland-Vendiola scored inside on the first three Kahuku possessions, and Daniel Kealoha Kaio splashed two 3-pointers from the right corner.

Kahuku led at the half, 25-17, but in the third quarter, Westmoreland-Vendiola ran into foul trouble, picking up a hand-check call, then an offensive foul while being covered by Reece Matsukawa, a 5-9 guard. Then, he picked up a fourth foul and went to the bench.

“They gave the wrong guy the foul,” Akana said. “That was a foul on Ben (Holakeituai), not Amari. That hurt us.”

Kailua was fully aware of Westmoreland-Vendiola’s absence.

“When Amari got into foul trouble, I feel like we really picked it up and took advantage of it. It really showed,” Philbrick said.