HONOLULU — A valiant Hawai'i Pacific University came up just short on FricWday night at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center, as Holy Names held on for a 79-78 upset in PacWest Conference play.
 
The Sharks (8-5, 3-2) lost for the first time in five games, as the Hawks (7-9, 3-4) collected a key win in conference play.
 
HPU played without the services of Niksha Federico, the PacWest leader in scoring and rebounding, who sat on the bench in street clothes with an injury suffered on Wednesday against Academy of Art.
 
"I'm so proud of the way we battled back to have a chance down the stretch," said HPU head coach Darren Vorderbruegge. "I'm disappointed with the loss, but we played really hard, especially without Niksha."
 
The Sharks trailed the Hawks by 14 points with 6:23 to play before going on a 15-4 run for a 3-point deficit with 41 seconds to play. But a key turnover with 11 seconds to play allowed the Hawks to go back up by four and a late 3-pointer from redshirt freshman David Rowlands put HPU down one with 2.4 seconds to play.  A quick foul and missed HNU free throws put the ball back into the Sharks hands, but a three-quarter court shot by freshman Emil Isovic banged off the back rim.
 
Junior forward Jonathan Janssen of Noosa Head, Australia/Mountain State, paced HPU with a career-high 25 points and double-doubled with 10 rebounds. Rowlands, the redshirt freshman guard from Dayton, Ohio/Moorpark, finished with 15 points, with senior guard Larry Lewis of Milwaukee, Wisc./Arcadia adding 12 points. Junior guard Darnell Bettis of Los Angeles, Calif./University, chalked up 11 points to go with six assists.
 
Holy Names was paced by the play of Jewels Sanders who came off the bench with 20 points and was part of a trio with five rebounds each. He hit 7-of-10 shots from the field, including 4-of-6 3-point shots. He nailed all four treys with a dunk mixed in five straight possessions. Marcelas Perry added 15 points with four assists and five boards.
 
HPU shot 50 percent from the floor (30-of-60), including 7-of-18 from the 3-point arc (39 points). The Sharks hit 11-of-16 from the foul line (69 percent).  Holy Names hit 52 percent (30-of-58) from the field, but that included 11-of-25 (44 percent) from the arc. HNU went just 8-of-18 (44 percent) from the charity stripe. The Hawks outrebounded the Sharks 35-32.
 
The Sharks and Hawks fought to a 21-all tie on a jumper from junior forward Spencer Vering of San Diego, Calif./Mater Dei Catholic. But a triple by Alonzo Tayler sparked an 8-0 run to give Holy Names the lead that they never gave up. The Hawks took that seven-point lead into the half, 41-34.
 
The Hawks extended the lead to 13 points early in the second half, but HPU rallied to cut the lead to seven when Sanders performed his magic, despite an answering 3 from Rowlands and a layup by senior forward Albert Christensson.
 
The Sharks have a quick turnaround before closing their homestand on Sunday afternoon. HPU takes on Notre Dame de Namur at the Blaisdell. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m.