Roosevelt senior guard Jake Kawasaki drives to the basket against Second Baptist. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Although the Roosevelt boys basketball team dropped its opening-round game of the Iolani Classic to Second Baptist by a score of 74-68, it gave the visitors from Houston everything they could handle Tuesday afternoon.

The Rough Riders (3-2) put together their best performance of the preseason, according to coach Steve Hathaway, which bodes well for them when they enter the Oahu Interscholastic Association regular season next month.

"The score at the end doesn't show it, but we gave them everything we could and I couldn't ask for anything more," said Hathaway, whose team trailed by as many as 14 after three quarters, but cut it to just four in the closing seconds. 

Hathaway's squad has the luxury of eight seniors on its roster of 14.

"It helps a lot because they didn't have that deer-in-the-headlights look," Hathaway said. "I didn't really go to the younger guys because I was afraid that was going to happen right away, so I think these guys were ready. The thing I told them and wrote on the board was, 'Know you're the better team,' and they went out believing that we were the better team."

Roosevelt senior guard Kevin Foster, who scored a game-high 24 points, said the seniors are on the same page.

"It helps a lot because we have experience," Foster said. "We have guys returning so we know how to play with each other, we know what we're going to do and we're just going to hit each other when we're open for easy baskets."

Two other seniors — Keanu Furtado and Brent Quackenbush — added 15 and 14 points, respectively. Point guard Jake Kawasaki — another senior — dished out six assists.

"Jake was outstanding pushing the ball. He he was getting to the hoop and that's what we were talking to him about the last few years, was not getting too deep, seeing the man coming and droping the ball off and I thought he did outstanding tonight," Hathaway said. "We're only getting better and I like it that we're mostly all seniors. We stayed to a seven-man rotation today and we're hoping to get another guy back from injury and once we get him back, I like what we're doing."

Second Baptist, which arrived in Honolulu just over 24 hours before tip off,  held an 18-16 lead after the first quarter and a 36-34 advantage going into halftime.

Fighting Eagles' coach Kevin Mouton said the evenly-played first half wasn't a result of jetlag, but rather a credit to Roosevelt's game plan.

"It wasn't us being tired or nothing. They were just faster, they made layups, they got by us off the dribble and if we didn't have a halftime there would have been a problem because we had to make that adjustment," Mouton said.

Second Baptist turned up the defense in the second half and consequently outscored Roosevelt 21 to 9 in the third quarter, before hanging on down the stretch.

The Rough Riders fell into the consolation bracket and will play the loser of Wednesday's first-round game between Kailua and St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.).