Iolani's Erik Yamada drives to the basket against Maryknoll. Yamada scored 15 points and added 3 rebounds and 2 assists in the win. Steve Erler | Special to SL

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Tue, Feb 10, 2015 @ Iolani

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Maryknoll

56

Iolani

62

Final	1	2	3	4
Maryknoll (6-6, 12-10)	14	6	16	20	56
Iolani (8-4, 18-8)	9	10	21	22	62

• Points
• Rebounds
• Assists

Z. Gelacio 18 pts  2 3pm  7/8 FTs

J. Sueing 15 pts  11/16 FTs

R. Mann 8 tot

B. Washington 6 tot

E. Yamada 2 ast

Any advantage in the ultra-competitive Interscholastic League of Honolulu is a plus in Dean Shimamoto's book.

Zach Gelacio scored 12 of his season-high 18 points after halftime to lead three scorers in double figures as Iolani outslugged Maryknoll, 62-56, in the ILH Division I regular-season finale for both teams at the Raiders' lower gym Tuesday night.

The win improved the Raiders' record to 7-3 and assures them a first-round bye in the upcoming six-team ILH single-elimination tournament.

"It's huge, because you see how competitive this ILH is," Shimamoto said. "You never know — I mean, Mid-Pac beat this (Maryknoll) team and Mid-Pac might be the sixth seed, Kamehameha has been able to beat guys and same with Saint Louis — so anytime you have to play one less game in the ILH it's helpful, so we'll take it."

Iolani, the fourth-ranked in the ScoringLive/OC16 Boys Basketball Power Rankings and the reigning D1 state champion, also got 15 points from Erik Yamada, 13 from Pikai Winchester and 12 from Hugh Hogland.

"Our team has a lot of scorers and on any night, anyone can go off, so we try to balance it out," said Gelacio, a junior guard. "We try to look for the open shots and if it's open we look to knock them down."

Gelacio and Winchester knocked down two 3-pointers each, while Hogland scored all of his points in the second half. Robby Manny grabbed a game-high eight rebounds for the Raiders.

"Our coach has been telling us to play like it's the state tournament and that's kind of what we're treating it like, because that's our goal: to get to the state tournament," said Gelacio, who shot 5 of 9 from the field. "We needed this one and we're going to keep coming out with fire. We've got to keep winning from here on. We've got to keep bringing it, because we know we'll be playing tough games from now on."

Iolani trailed for much of the first half. Maryknoll held leads of 14-9 after the first quarter and 20-19 at halftime.

The Raiders got on track offensively in the second half and took the lead for good on Hogland's tip-in that made it 27-26 with 5:35 left in the third quarter.

"What was great was he was real active," Shimamoto said of Hogland, a sophomore center. "He's 6-8 and he's agile and when he's active, a lot of these great things happen. A lot of his points came off of putbacks. Some were straight passes, but a lot came off him working on putbacks and when he has that kind of effort he's hard to stop and we're hard to stop."

Iolani held a 40-36 lead after three quarters and led by as many as 11 following a Hogland putback with 4:40 to play. However, Maryknoll clawed back to within four at 60-56 following back-to-back treys by Saige Pulu, but could get no closer.

"To have a lead is great, (but) you never really know if it's enough with a team that can shoot like that — and you saw them close the gap really quickly — so I wasn't feeling secure about it until the clock hit zeroes, but to have it go down us handling the ball, having to make free throws, that's not a bad place to be," Shimamoto said.

The Raiders made 25 of their 32 free throws for the game. Yamada was 9 of 10 from the line and Gelacio and Winchester each made 7 of 8.

"We stress and emphasize free throws big time in practice and it finishes games for us, so we need to knock those down all the time," Gelacio said.

Justice Sueing and Brian Washington scored 15 points apiece for sixth-ranked Maryknoll, which saw its four-game win streak snapped and fell to 5-5.

It was the second meeting between the teams this year. Iolani won, 50-48, in a game that was played at Maryknoll on Jan. 20.