Moanalua rights ship with 53-46 win over Kalani

Moanalua's RJ Dominguez puts up a left-handed layup against the Kalani Falcons in an OIA East contest. Greg Yamamoto | SL

Moanalua snapped a four-game losing streak and clinched a spot in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I playoffs with a 53-46 win over host Kalani in a regular season contest Wednesday night.

Na Menehune improved to 5-5 in the OIA East with the win and will close out the regular season with a home game against Kaimuki on Friday.

"We needed either this game of the Kaimuki game to get into the playoffs. We don't have to worry about that now," said Moanalua coach Byron Mello. "We can finish with a winning record and send out (our) seniors off on a good note on Friday, which is what our goal is to do."

Moanalua trailed 13-10 after the first quarter, but outscored the Falcons 13-2 in the second quarter to take a 23-15 advantage into the break.

"Our second quarter was our Achilles' heel all year, tonight we did really well in the second (quarter) of not letting the game get away from us and having good defensive possessions and stops and rebounds," said Mello.

RJ Dominguez led Na Menehune in the win with a game-high 15 points.

"He's been our go-to guy all year, averaging about 15 to 16 points a game," Mello said on Dominguez. "He's so consistent, really deceptive and hard to guard in the post, really clever and has a lot of good finishes and he's just had a tremondous senior year for us. Defensively I thought he was more of a rebounding force tonight and thought he changed some shots in the lane and that's something we haven't seen from him as much before."

Defense led to offense for Moanalua, said Dominguez.

"We knew Kalani was going to hit shots, so we knew that we just had to contest shots the best we can, get the rebound and get the pace going down court. Our coach wanted us to get pace down court, and we made sure we knew what we were running. They wanted to give me the ball and then (I) just created straight from them."

Max Pepe had 10 points to lead the Falcons (5-5 OIA East) in the loss.