Captain Whitlock accounted for two-thirds of his team's scoring with 40 points and Kalaheo beat Saint Louis, 60-55, Wednesday night in the 18^th annual James Alegre Basketball Invitational at the Alegre Gymnasium.

This game had preseason written all over it from the start. It was the Mustangs' first game on Oahu after going 2-3 in Los Angeles. But it was the Crusaders' seventh day on the basketball court since a number of their players were coming off the state football championship just 11 days ago. Saint Louis shot 20 of 38 from the free-throw line; Kalaheo was 21 of 31.

Kalaheo had two starters foul out; Andreas Jankovic had three fouls in the first quarter and drew his fourth in the second before fouling out at 7:08 in the third. Harry Wallace fouled out with 3:05 in the fourth. Saint Louis center Joshua White also fouled out. More on him later.

Even the officials were in preseason form. They let a missed first free throw play through when it was a double-bonus situation for Kalaheo.

"I was telling Allan (Silva, Saint Louis' coach), ‘That's as ugly as it gets, right?'" Kalaheo coach Rob Pardini said. "Early in the season, both teams struggling to do anything right."

Saint Louis looked like a team that had just been through hibernation.

"Seven days ago, we got into the gym," Silva said. "For what we have right with one week, not bad, not bat. We have to take care of the ball. We made some really bad passes tonight. We had over 15 bad passes; that's 30 points (to the opponent) or more if you look at the 3s. Defensively, we're not there yet."

Saint Louis did not make its first field goal until just under five minutes into the game. The Crusaders trailed 11-1 at 4:41 in the first after the Mustangs drained three consecutive 3-pointers, two by Whitlock.

"He's a scorer," Pardini said. "He can do it all. Physically, a little tired today, but we'll try to get him some rest looking forward. Our rotation was limited because we had some kids who normally would play who are either hurt or decided not to go to school and get their stuff done, so we're going through that early-season stuff. Those two kids would've helped us a lot today."

The Mustangs controlled the first half, taking a 33-24 lead. But Saint Louis would pull to within three on two occasions in the second half, the latest with 55 seconds left in the game after Jalen Smith, who sat out last season after transferring from Kalaheo, made two free throws. Both the Mustangs were in the double bonus and Kai Samiere and Andrew Kearney each made one of their free throws in the final 31 seconds to hold off a Crusader rally.

Jaymason Nunuha led Saint Louis with 16 points, 12 coming in the second half.

With it's very late start because of football, Saint Louis has a ways to catch up, but Silva is hopeful.

"We have 10 on the squad and some of them are brand new to the game," he said.

He said White, who was some 400 pounds when he came out for basketball, has trimmed down some. Although White started the game he did not play that much and it wasn't just because of the fouls. Still, Silva expects him to play more eventually.

"He's not in shape yet," Silva. "When he gets in shape, he will be in the game longer because he can do some things a lot of people cannot do. He had that one play under the basket where he cleared everybody out., but he has to get smarter with how he uses his body."

White's father, Joshua "Zeus" White, was a star running back for Farrington in the 1980s and later played in the Arena Football League, as well as with the defunct Hawaiian Islanders.

The Alegre tournament continues through Saturday. The tournament is named in the memory of Jim Alegre, who coached more than 600 high school victories for Radford in 34 seasons and served as the school's athletic director.