HONOLULU – The Chaminade University men's basketball team played perhaps its most important Pacific West Conference game of the season on Thursday.
Facing California Baptist, the seventh-ranked team in the nation, the Silverswords went tooth-and-nail in front of a vocal crowd of 225 at McCabe Gym but it was the Lancers coming away with the 88-76 win.
The loss halted the 'Swords' five-game winning streak and their home win streak at seven.
Rohndell Goodwin had a team-high 23 points for Chaminade which fell to 9-6 overall and 5-3 in the PacWest.
Kuany Kuany notched his third double-double of the year with 13 points and 10 rebounds while adding five assists.
Austin Pope also had 13 with 11 points each coming from
Sam Daly and
Kiran Shastri. Shastri tied his career-high with three blocks.
Goodwin, who came into the game fourth nationally in total field goals made with 117, made 10 shots on the night.
Despite the loss, Kuany moved past former Chaminade great Tim Dunham into seventh in the all-time scoring list with 1,418 points and needs just nine to pass former teammate Lee Bailey. He also passed both Marko Kolaric and Tony Randolph into third in the career rebounding list with 778.
CBU (13-1, 5-1 PacWest) was led by conference Preseason Player of the Year Michael Smith who had 24 points and eight boards.
The two combatants had an old-fashion slugfest from the get-go. Neither team could establish a big run with Chaminade's biggest lead in the first 10 minutes being five (10-5) early in the game while CBU's was six (25-19 at the 10:42 mark). The Lancers grabbed their largest lead of eight at 48-40 with a minute left in the half and held a 48-42 advantage at halftime.
CBU roared with six straight to open the second half to grab a 12-point lead but CUH responded with a 17-7 run with Goodwin and Daly responsible for all of the home team's points during the stretch.
Dantley Walker's triple brought the 'Swords to within a digit at 11:15 left and later, after forcing a 30-second shot clock violation, Shastri squared the contest at 67 with a 3-pointer with 8:47 remaining. A Smith layup on the next possession put CBU up 69-67 but Kuany's triple a minute later gave Chaminade its first lead since early in the first half at 70-69.
The Lancers retook the lead on the next possession and held a four-point advantage before Pope's layup brought the 'Swords to 74-72 with six minutes remaining.
But Chaminade went cold from the floor for the next six minutes, making only 1 of 5 shots from the floor while CBU hit all five tries including three 3-pointers as the 14-2 run ended all hopes of an upset.
CBU shot nearly 55 percent from the floor in the second half while Chaminade, after hitting 51.6 percent of its shots in the first half, was held to nearly 47 percent in the second.
Statistically, the game was near-even in field goals (30 each), 3-pointers (CUH 11-10), assists (CBU 12-11) and both committed just nine turnovers.
However, the Lancers out-rebounded the 'Swords 39-27 and made 18 of their 20 free throw attempts while Chaminade was just 5-of-10 from the line.
The Silverswords will travel to the Mainland for the first time this season as they open a three-game road trip Tuesday at Academy of Art in San Francisco. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
