HONOLULU – A year ago, the Chaminade University men's basketball team eliminated Dominican from a berth in the NCAA West Regional.
This time, the Silverswords made sure the Penguins did not make it to the Pacific West Conference Tournament.
Kuany Kuany scored 21 points and pulled down seven rebounds to lead Chaminade to a 92-87 win over Dominican Thursday at McCabe Gym.
Playing the role of spoiler, Chaminade's win kept the Penguins out of next week's gathering at the CU Arena in Irvine, Calif., allowing Hawai'i Pacific to earn the league's sixth and final berth.
The Silverswords also got 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor from
Kevin Hu while
Lee Bailey returned to the lineup after missing the last six games due to injury and scored 12 points with six assists as they improved to 11-14 overall and 8-11 in the PacWest.
Oscar Pedroso contributed 10 points for the 'Swords cause.
Dominican (12-15, 9-10) got 21 points, nine boards, five assists and two blocks from Dominique Tapin.
The contest was back-and-forth before the 'Swords were able to take a 41-28 lead late in the first half, thanks to a 17-2 run. Chaminade held a 47-41 lead at halftime.
But in the second half and their tournament hopes on the line, the gritty Penguins rallied as a 12-2 run gave them a 57-56 lead five minutes in. But Kuany's bucket at the 12:51 mark gave the 'Swords the lead for good at 62-61.
Chaminade eventually built the lead to 15 on Hu's layup with 6:37 left before Dominican made one final late charge. The Penguins made things interesting as they chopped the deficit to five with 20 seconds left, but ran out of time in the end.
Despite Dominican shooting a higher field goal percentage (50 percent to 48.3) and pulling down more rebounds (39-30), Chaminade had 16 assists to DUC's nine and was 24-of-33 from the charity stripe to the Penguins' 18-of-32.
The Silverswords wrap up the season Saturday against Academy of Art at McCabe Gym with tipoff set for 7:30 p.m. Live audio coverage will be available on GoSwords.com. Seniors Bailey,
Frankie Eteuati and
AJ Mathew will be honored following the game.
