Luke Pardini scored 12 of his game-high 18 points in the third quarter as the Mustangs turned it on in the second half. Brandon Ching | SL

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Sat, Dec 28, 2019 @ Kaiser

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Kalaheo

61

Kaiser

42

Final	1	2	3	4
Kalaheo (11-3, 21-11)	10	16	22	13	61
Kaiser (11-4, 20-9)	16	7	10	9	42

M. Drummer 12 pts  2/2 FTs

L. Pardini 18 pts  6/8 FTs

HAWAII KAI—The New Year might be less than four days away, but Kalaheo opened up league play with a bang.

The No. 7 Mustangs (1-0) held a three point lead at halftime and broke open the game in the third quarter for a 61-42 win over No. 6 Kaiser (0-1) as both teams opened up Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I East play Saturday.

Kaiser led muscled their way in the paint scoring eight of their 16 quarter points from point blank range led by Cyrus Singelman and Kenji Toyama added a 3-pointer from the left corner as the Cougars led, 16-10 going into the second quarter.

"The assistant coaches were pointing out that it was pretty much for three and a half quarters we played pretty much to a T to expect to come out with energy and effort on both ends of the court. We executed tonight. They're (Kaiser) a very good team and will be solid all year so that's a good win for us," Kalaheo coach Rob Pardini said.

Kalaheo attacked and got to the free throw line five times in the quarter to come away with eight points on 10 attempts and tied the game at 18 on Bobby Thompson's free throws. The Cougars and Mustangs traded baskets until the final seconds as Ryan Owens' putback off of Kanoa Smith's shot attempt beat the buzzer.

"They had a size advantage on us. We kept working hard and we got some second chance points," Owens said.

"We settled down and we can battle inside a little bit too. We got some interior buckets. We didn't have a lot of attempts from the perimeter and that's good basketball for us," coach Pardini.

Owens powered the visiting Mustangs in the first half scoring 10 of his 12 points as Kalaheo led, 26-23 at halftime.

The Mustangs opened up the third quarter on a 7-0 run that included a cutting Thompson for a layup in their half court set and Smith converted the three-point play off a steal to make it, 32-23.

"We were switching it up between man and zone so it was about creating turnovers and leak outs," Owens said.

Kalaheo turned over Kaiser and scored easy transition buckets led by Luke Pardini, who scored 12 of his game-high 18 points off layups as well as putbacks as the Mustangs outscored the Cougars, 22-10 and went up by as much as 17 in the quarter.

"We were fortunate to be up three and we didn't play well in the first quarter and hung around in the second and got a bucket at the buzzer to go up three which gave us momentum. Second half we got some early steals and easy buckets and transition and locked down in the half court defensively," coach Pardini said.

"We're a better team than what we showed. We were a good team for 25 minutes of a 32 minute game and seven minutes of this game killed us," Kaiser coach Kenneth Powell said.

The Mustangs also got 12 points from Andrew Jones, who went to work in the post, scoring eight of them in the fourth quarter.

Mario Drummer had 12 points to lead the Cougars, Singelman had 10 and Toyama with eight as Kaiser looks to regroup as it hosts Kaimuki on Jan. 2.

Kalaheo hosts Kalani (0-1) on the same night.