Box Score HONOLULU, HI (February 24, 2015) – The Hawai'i Pacific Men's Basketball Team (15-10, 10-9) moved one step closer to the PacWest Tournament with a 73-63 win over Dominican University of California (12-14, 9-9) on Tuesday night at the Neal Blaisdell Center.

The Sharks answered the bell in front of a big crowd in the biggest game of the season to date. It was a classic Darren Vorderbruegge coached team win; smothering defense and taking care of the basketball on the offensive end.

Dominican's Dominique Taplin came out hot scoring eight points in just over the first three minutes which staked Dominican to a 10-3 lead. The Sharks responded with a 9-0 run to give HPU its first lead at 12-10. The teams traded blows for much of the first half with Dominican holding a 34-26 lead with 5:31 to play in the half. The HPU defense pitched a shutout for the rest of half while the offense scored eight to tie the game at the half.

The HPU control continued into the second half, Justin Long's three-pointer with 15:52 left started the second half on a 7-1 run. HPU never trailed in the second half and built a nine-point lead (53-44) with 7:52 to go. From that point, HPU's lead was never less than five.

HPU only turned the ball over 11 times while forcing 17. The Sharks limited Dominican to just 8-30 (26.6%) in the second half and 19-55 (34.5%) for the game.

Long scored a game-high 28 points, including four three-pointers and 10-11 from the line. Luke Hager hit 11-14 from the charity strip on his way to 21 points. Colfax Nordquist scored 10 points to go with a team-high six rebounds.

The win gives HPU a half-game lead on Dominican for the last spot in the PacWest playoffs, it also gives HPU the all important tiebreaker should the Sharks and Penguins end up with the same record. An HPU win on Saturday OR a Dominican loss (at Chamainde, at Hilo) sends the Sharks into the postseason.

HPU will celebrate senior day on Saturday (February 28th) when Holy Names visits Moanalua High School at 3:00 pm.