’Pack dunks Buffs with
loads of Fung

The king of Hawaii high school boys water polo has been dethroned.

Jason Fung scored two goals and Pac-Five held off a furious comeback to defeat Punahou 5-4 in the championship game of the ILH tournament at Iolani.

With the win over Punahou, winner of four straight and 27 ILH championships, the Wolfpack forced a playoff to determine the league's overall champion next Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Iolani.

"We just gained respect," Pac-Five's Harry Kersten said. "Walking and shaking at the end of the game they (the fans) were like 'you guys were great.'

"If we could shut down their offense, they didn't have anything. We knew defense was going to win this game."

The Pac-Five defense, almost non-existent in the second half, came up big with 39 seconds left in the game when Kersten stole a pass sent inside to Punahou's Kai Aluii.

The Wolfpack then played keep-away for the next 35 seconds and a desperation shot from Punahou goalie Joe Svec with 4 seconds remaining sailed far left of the goal as time expired.

"All I can think about was don't let them score," Kersten said. "This was our game and we're not going to let them take it from us."

Down 4-1 at halftime, the Buffanblu scored two goals in a two-minute span from Kaniela Lyman-Meiserreau and Ikaika Aki in the third quarter.

Aki's goal, like most of Punahou's goals, was off a one-on-one situation where the shooter was isolated in the middle with just one defender.

"The guys were caught sleeping," Pac-Five coach Shawn Williamson said. "Punahou has all six guys working as a team. We were shutting down their offense for a while and they made some individual moves when our guys were sleeping. When you make a mistake, they will capitalize on your mistake."

The Buffanblu also turned up its defense in the second half as Pac-Five struggled to get off a shot in the third.

"We just tried to change our defense a little bit, press a bit more and utilize (the fact) that you're near the edge of the cliff and we had to do something and, we did," Punahou coach Ken Smith said.

Pac-Five, scoreless since the last minute of the second quarter, finally broke through on Fung's penalty shot with 4:22 left in the fourth.

"That gave us that two-point lead and made us feel more comfortable," Fung said. "We had a chance to save ourselves in case they made another goal, which they did."

Punahou's Geoffrey Long cut the deficit to 5-4 with his shot with over 3 minutes left in the game. Long, isolated one-on-one in the middle, received a pass from the right side by Alex Lin.

Punahou missed on its final two attempts to tie the game.

Long's shot went off the bottom left post with 2:34 left and Lin's point-blank shot missed with 1:27 left.

"With a one-goal lead we had to be careful and play tight," Kersten said.

Pac-Five, in its first championship game in the program's eight-year history, played off emotion and adrenaline in the first half.

Known as a second-half team, the Wolfpack scored three minutes into the game.

"We usually have the first half to get going and we had a shot in the first couple minutes," Fung said. "Once that shot went in the adrenaline was on and we just played hard from there."