Leilehua's Joseph Gouty puts up a shot against Campbell. Gouty led the Mules with 17 points in the win. CJ Caraang | SL

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Fri, Feb 6, 2015 @ Leilehua

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Campbell

36

Leilehua

45

Final	1	2	3	4
Campbell (19-8, 19-8)	6	9	3	18	36
Leilehua (18-11, 18-11)	2	13	14	16	45

SEASON LEADERS

Joseph Gouty 12.4 ppg  15 3pm  69.7 FT%

Michael Merchant 11.0 ppg  22 3pm  80.6 FT%

WAHIAWA — In its biggest test to date this season, the Leilehua boys' basketball team came out a bit shaky early on, but only got stronger as the game progressed en route to a 45-36 win over visiting Campbell Friday night.

Joseph Gouty scored all 17 of his points after halftime to help the Mules, ranked fifth in the ScoringLive/OC16 Boys Basketball Power Rankings, complete an undefeated regular season before a spirited crowd of about 700 fans at Paul T. Kobayashi Gymnasium. They improved to 10-0 and will be the top seed out of the Western Division in next week's Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I Tournament.

Ninth-ranked Campbell suffered their first loss of the season to fall to 9-1 and will be the West's second seed. Both teams had secured first-round byes in the 12-team tournament prior to Friday's game.

Leilehua struggled to get anything going offensively in the first quarter, when they shot just 1 of 11 from the field and were outscored 6-2.

"The kids wanted it so much, we just came out and kind of shot ourselves in the foot for that first quarter," Mules' coach Pat Wetzel said, whose team didn't score in the first seven minutes and 10 seconds of the game. "I think we were just too emotional. We were doing things that we normally don't do. We kind of were careless, but I just the told them to settle down and let the crowd be to our advantage, instead of being a distraction and if we just tok care of our fundamentals, made good passes, quality decisions, then everything else would take care of itself."

That's just what the Mules did, outscoring the Sabers 27 to 12, over the next two quarters. They went on a 7-0 run that was capped by a David Tibayan free throw to take their first lead at 15-13 with just under a minute left in the second quarter.

Jayce Bantolina hit a buzzer-beater for Campbell to send the game into halftime tied at 15.

"It felt like we weren't in the zone," said Gouty of the Mules' rough start. "We felt like everything was just too hyped for us. We were too worried about the crowd, too worried about the cameras, we were just frustrated and little nervous at the beginning."

Leilehua bounced back in the second quarter, but it was in the third that it took control of the game. Gouty's layup on the opening possession of the second half ignited a 10-2 run that put his team ahead 25-17.

The Mules held a 29-18 advantage after three quarters, but the Sabers went on a 13-6 run to open the fourth quarter, capped by Lamart Dudley's tip-in that made the deficit 35-31 with 4:10 remaining.

However, Leilehua quickly separated again on a Nicholas Duran free throw and Gouty's steal and layup on consecutive possessions.

David Marrero hit a free throw with 1:18 to play to pull Campbell within 39-34, but the Mules scored six of the final eight points and held on.

Marrero finished with team-high 12 points for the Sabers. The trio of Dudley, Michael Merchant and Jomar Jett Gapusan entered the game averaging more than 30 points per game combined, but finished with just 14 points between them.

"Honestly, I thought we caught Campbell on a cold night," Wetzel said. "I've watched them, I've watched Merchant, I've watched Gapusan, Dudley hit 3's, and I guess for us, we were very fortunate that they weren't hitting tonight, because maybe it could have been a different outcome — and that was good because we were just as cold as they were."

Wetzel was especially proud of his team's defensive effort against a balanced Sabers' offense.

"To hold a quality offensive Campbell team to 36 points, that's where we won the game," Wetzel said. "We didn't win it, obviously, because of our offense, we won it because we just kind of dug in and went from there."

Campbell's 36 points were a season-low mark offensively.

"Give (Leilehua) credit. They did a good job defensively, offensively," Sabers' coach Wyatt Tau said. "They did enough to take us out of our rhythm, we couldn't get into a rhythm and we tried to do other things, but it just didn't go our way. Hats off to Leilehua, they did a good job and we just didn't have it tonight."