Westchester's Akil Hall-Reese closely checks Roman Catholic's Tony Carr. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Cameron Young leaps up for a rebound between Roman Catholic's Carnell McGirt and Shep Garner. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Roman Catholic's Gemil Holbrook shoots one of his game-high seven 3-pointers. Holbrook was 7-of-10 in his 3-point attempts in the semifinal match against Westchester. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Westchester's Elijah Stewart makes a 3-point attempt over Roman Catholic's Carnell McGirt. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Fri, Dec 20, 2013 @ Iolani

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Westchester

42

Roman Catholic

40

Final	1	2	3	4
Westchester	13	8	7	14	42
Roman Catholic	23	4	9	4	40

G. Holbrook 21 pts  7 3pm

E. Stewart 11 pts  1 3pm

Trailing for most of the game, Westchester (Los Angeles, CA) rallied in the fourth quarter to defeat Roman Catholic (Philadephia, PA), 42-40 in the nightcap semifinal game of the 'Iolani Classic on Friday night. The Comets will play White Station (Memphis, TN) in the Title game on Saturday night at around 8 pm.  

"It's a great honor, this is an outstanding tournament with great teams so it's good for our kids to play at a high level and they're having a good time too," said Westchester coach Ed Azzam.

"It means a lot, we're going to play a really good team tomorrow and we're looking compete and do well," said Elijah Stewart.

The Comets trailed, 36-28 heading into the fourth quarter and Westchester outscored Roman Catholic, 14-4 to rally. Akil Reese-Hall hit a three near the top of the arc and Elijah Stewart blocked a Roman Catholic shot by pinning it to the backboard and in transition, Layon Gooden fed him for the layup and the Comets trailed 36-35 and Roman Catholic called timeout at 5:17. Stewart scored 8 of his 11 points in the fourth quarter and he also recorded 6 blocked shots.

"My coach told me to play my game, told me to try and take over a find my shots and teammates and defend the basket. They weren't perfect or fundamentally sound as soon as they took their two steps, they were going up and I was taking it out of the air," said Elijah Stewart.

Cameron Young who added 11 points, made 1-of-2 free throws to make it 37-36. Stewart, a Loyola Marymount University commit, hit a three pointer in the left corner to put the Comets up, 39-37, their first lead since taking a 3-0 lead early in first quarter.

Roman Catholic took a timeout with 30.0 seconds and following the timeout, Tony Carr had an open look at a three-point attempt, but missed and Nick Hamilton secured the rebound with 8.7 seconds left and gave it up to Gooden. He made 1-of-2 free throws to put the Comets up 42-38.

Roman Catholic's Shep Garner made a left-handed layup with 1.9 seconds and the Cahillites called a timeout. However, Westchester inbounded the ball and ran out the clock. 

"Our defense was excellent in the second half. They slowed it down and tried to control the tempo. We couldn't make a shot, last night we couldn't miss a shot and tonight we couldn't make a jump shot or a free throw. It was a game where we tried to grind it out and try to make some good things happen. They came together defensively, we still made some mistakes, but they did a good job defensively,"  said Azzam.

The Comets' win overshadowed an outstanding shooting performance by Roman Catholic's Gemil Holbrook. He was 6-of-6 from behind the three-point arc in the first quarter. Roman Catholic shot 7-of-8 for three pointers in the first quarter. Holbrook was 6-of-8 and scored 18 of Roman Catholic's 27 points in the first half. He finished the game 7-of-10, and a game-high 21 points, all of them were three point attempts.

"A couple of them we were guarding and he shot the heck out of the ball," said Azzam, on Holbrook. "I'm glad he cooled off a little bit, but he was phenomenal shooting the ball." 

The first quarter only had one made 2-point field goal by both teams. There were three made 2-point field goals combined for both teams and both teams combined for eleven made 3-point field goals in the first half.

Westchester came back in the second quarter and outscored the Cahilites 8-4 and 21-13 in the second half. The Comets were 3-of-9 from the free throw line in the first half and finished 10-of-19 from the free throw line for the game.