Saint Louis weathers Kamehameha rally, opens ILH slate with win

Saint Louis' Aiva Arquette puts up a shot over a defender in the first half against Kamehameha. Arquette scored 23 of his 25 points in the opening two quarters in a win over the Warriors. Greg Yamamoto | SL

Saint Louis raced out to what looked like a commanding 15 point lead at the break, then spent the final 16 minutes holding off a furious Kamehameha rally to open up its regular season campaign with a 70-62 victory.

Aiva Arquette put up a dominant first half performance, pouring in 23 points, including two three pointers, but was held to just two points the rest of the way, as the Warriors clearly focused on taking away his effectiveness on the offensive end.

"Going into the halftime we were up big, but we knew Kamehameha was going to come back so we had to respect that," said Bayudan. "We needed to stay disciplined and committed to the schemes and gameplan."

That shift defensive ultimately created opportunities for Hayden Bayudan and reserve post Pupu Sepulona, who combined for 21 points in the second half for the Crusaders. And the visiting team needed every bit of offensive output as the Warriors' front line tandem of EJ Kapihe and Kahiau Brown, caught fire out of the break, accounting for 19 of the 31 second half points put on the board for Kamehameha.

"We knew that any of us can score but Aiva is our guy,' added Bayudan. "When they took him out, we had to just stay composed to our gameplan and I tried to score to take away some of that pressure, but also to find our bigs and facilitate and keep the tempo."

The Warriors clawed its way back to get as close as three points, as Jha Spencer's second three of the game cut the margin to 63-60. But Saint Louis pushed the margin back up to seven thanks to a pair of baskets by Sepulona at point blank range, taking advantage of a foul-strapped Kapihe.

"Tonight we were missing two of our bigs, Kache Kaio and AJ Bianco, but we have two young bigs in Pupu and Jordan (Posiula) and we put all the confidence in them. We know how hard they and try to push them," said Bayudan.

Two missed free throws that could have trimmed the lead to four with 34 seconds left in regulation hurt, but Revuelto hit three of four from the charity stripe to ice the game.

Kamehameha outrebounded Saint Louis 26-17 and also won the battle of hustle stats with eight steals and three blocks to just six steals and a single block for the Crusaders, but Saint Louis found both more volume and success at free throw line, hitting 18 of 23 attempts compared to Kamehameha's 10 of 15.