Oak Hill's Sindarius Thornwell puts up a shot attempt against Kamehameha. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Oak Hill's Lennard Freeman throws down a dunk against Kamehameha. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Oak Hill's RJ Curlington puts up a shot between three Kamehameha defenders. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Tue, Dec 18, 2012 @ Iolani

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Oak Hill

78

Kamehameha

37

Final	1	2	3	4
Oak Hill	24	7	29	18	78
Kamehameha (7-5, 14-8)	6	11	8	14	37

A. Gerard 12 pts  2 3pm  2/3 FTs

R. Curlington 23 pts  4 3pm  3/3 FTs

R.J. Curlington scored a game-high 23 points and nationally ranked Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) cruised past Kamehameha, 78-37, in the opening round of the 28th 'Iolani Classic boys basketball tournament at 'Iolani.

The visiting Warriors, ranked seventh in the ESPN 25 Power Rankings, will meet host 'Iolani in a quarterfinal, 5 p.m. Thursday.

Kamehameha will face McKinley at 11 a.m. Thursday in a consolation-bracket game.

First-round acton continues Wednesday with the feature game pitting Moanalua against Findlay Prep of Las Vegas, which is ranked second in the ESPN 25.

"Hopefully, we get to the semis," Oak Hill coach Steve Smith said. "When you get to that round, it gets really ramped up and the level of play is a lot tougher.

"'Iolani is always well-coached and disciplined. We'll have to play better on Thursday night."

Curlington, who led with 15 points at the half and finished with four 3-pointers, was among four Warriors to score in double figures. Starters Troy Williams and Sindarius Thornwell and reserve Chris Tang followed with 12 points each.

Austin Gerard led the other Warriors with 12 points.

Kamehameha took a brief 2-0 lead on Makoa Camanse-Stevens' layup about 30 seconds into the game. But Thornwell hit the first of eight 3-poniters by Oak Hill to ignite an 18-0 run before Kason Smith Bejgrowicz made a free throw with two minutes, five seconds left in the first quarter. Curlington sandwiched 3-pointers around Gerard's first of two 3-pointer to end the quarter with Oak Hill in a commanding 24-6 advantage.

Kamehameha got a little 11-0 run in the second quarter when it got 3-pointers from Noa Kinimaka, Gerard and Camanse-Stevens, but still trailed 31-17 at the half.

Oak Hill had a 14-0 run in the third to open its lead to 49-19 and made it 60-25 by the end of the third quarter. Oak Hill's margin continued to get larger toward the end, when Tang added some late 3-pointers.

"It was a good opportunity for our players to play against bigger and better guys," Kamehameha coach Julie Nakanishi said. "It's a good opportunity for our boys. I just wanted them to play fearless, get used to play against bigger and better guys. In some capacity, we had some fearlessness, but I would've liked to have seen more from our boys tonight."

Oak Hill has four players signed to Division I college programs: Ike Iroegbu (Washington State), Troy Williams (Indiana), Nate Britt (North Carolina) and Thornwell (South Carolina).

Kamehameha didn't help itself where Oak Hill couldn't defend against it: at the free throw line. Kamehameha was 7 of 16.