HONOLULU, Hawaii – The opening salvo on the Hawaii trip for the Men's Basketball squad was a heartbreaker, as Vanguard (8-5, 4-3) dropped to league-leading Chaminade (7-5, 5-1) in overtime, 77-78.
Erik Howlin, who entered as a top-10 scorer in the PacWest, finished with 23 points after 16 in the first half. Devin Carson (5-10, 4-7 3PT) was a key contributor off the bench, with his 14 points being the second-most on the team.
As a team, VU took 39 threes, their most since they took 37 at Arizona Christian in February 2024. In a battle of wills, Vanguard's number one-ranked defense held a Top-3 offense in Chaminade below their season average, even with the extra five minutes.
The Silverswords were paced by Nathan Medina's 22 points, with four others for the home side notching double-figures.
What Happened?:
Going on the road to face the number-one team in the conference is never an easy task. Early, it looked as though Vanguard understood the assignment.
Howlin scored seven of Vanguard's first nine, as Vanguard clearly had an emphasis on being the aggressors downhill. However, the King twins helped Chaminade keep pace early. As it stood 14-10 in favor of the guests, Erik Howlin had a steal and run-out for a back-scratching jam to sway momentum over to Vanguard, with a Carson Frawley rejection helping send VU into the under-12 media ahead 18-10. The good fortune would continue immediately after the break, as a Devin Carson triple would give Vanguard their largest lead of the night at 23-10 with 11:36 left in the half.
However, the fouls began to rack up, and Chaminade was able to climb back in thanks to a 12-20 mark from the line in just the first half (20-30 FT on the game). Despite this, the Lions kept them at bay for the rest of the half. The opening frame came to a close when Bryson Metz snaked through the trees of the CUH defense, finding a pocket just below the elbow to elevate. However, the humidity in the arena made the court slick, and as Metz began to slip, he threw up an acrobatic shot off-platform that somehow went down to give VU a 36-27 lead into the intermission.
The start of the second half saw Medina for Chaminade throw a warning shot across the bow for Vanguard, as he hit a triple right away to push him into double-figures. While Vanguard did well to stall any major run for the hosts, Chaminade whittled away at the Vanguard lead until sharpshooter Medina hit another trey to tie it at 48 with 10:27 to go. Devin Carson returned the favor to boost VU back up by three, until 44 seconds later when he hit another to steal momentum right back heading into the under-eight.
Chaminade was not done fighting, though as they crashed the glass even harder, picking up nine of their 16 total O-boards in the second-half. Roland Banks II had one of them on a put back before Kris King hit his lone triple of the night to knot it a 60 with 4:29 remaining. Kris King gave Chaminade their first lead in almost thirty minutes of game time on a jumper with 90 seconds left, to make it 64-63. A turnover and a miss 3PT on back-to-back possessions meant the foul game was on for VU for the final 57 seconds.
Vanguard did not panic, and managed the game well to put themselves in position to try to tie with :09 seconds on the clock, trailing 65-68. A storybook moment then occurred, as Carson Frawley silenced the place he called home for two years in McCabe Gymnasium, knocking down the tying trey with :01 to go on a pitch-back from longtime friend Bryson Metz.
Then came overtime.
The Silverswords quickly pushed the envelope to a four-point advantage, which is where the difference remained until the final 90 seconds. Down 76-72, Metz hit an icy pull-up three just before the one-minute call from the Public Address Announcer. VU played for a stop, and it came when Medina's jumper went offline. On the ensuing possession, Metz wanted the same look, and he got it, but could not connect this time around… yet there was Tony Colley for cleanup on aisle one, dishing down to Dylan Swillis for a 77-76 lead with 18 seconds left. CUH came down quick and Banks II came up short. Tony Colley secured the ball with 2 seconds to go, and a foul looked imminent, but one official saw it different, signaling a jump ball instead: arrow Chaminade.
As Chaminade is one of the best BLOB teams in the PacWest, Vanguard elected to use their last timeout to make sure they had the right personnel. However, it was for naught as Banks II threw a lob over 6'11" Sammy Howlin and 6'6" Dylan Swillis to Nate Sasser III for an acrobatic tip-in at the last second. The video review adjusted the clock back to 1.6, and Aibigho Ujadughele was able to get off a half-court heave that had the right power, but was just a tad off to the left to keep Vanguard from victory.
Of note: Pape Cisse was removed from the game early and taken to a local medical center during the game due to an injury to his mouth. However, he was able to return to the arena later after evaluation.
Vanguard is now 0-2 on the season in games that required an extra frame. VU is also 0-3 all-time against Chaminade, with all three contests being decided by single-digits.
Vanguard led for 35:23 and had the edge in the bench battle by a 35-14 margin but ultimately could not stick it out against Chaminade's relentlessness.
What Was Said?: "Credit Chaminade for making some key plays down the stretch," said Head Coach Rhett Soliday. "That was a great college basketball game where both teams were fighting as hard as they could to create advantage. Throughout the game, we needed to take better care of the ball and keep them off the offensive glass better than we did tonight. With all that considered, I still thought we did enough to close it out, but they made a great play to win the game. We have no time to feel sorry for ourselves as we play an excellent Hawaii Pacific team in a couple days."
What's Next?: The Lions press on in Honolulu, as attention turns to the Sharks of Hawaii Pacific on Thursday (8:30 PM PT). The two sides split their season-series last year, with the last meeting being the overtime victory in the Freed for VU, 91-89.
