• Photo gallery: OIA Red Championship boy’s basketball

Moanalua has been playing for its boys basketball postseason life for more than a month.

When it takes the court next, it’ll be as the only seeded team from the Oahu Interscholastic Association in the state tournament.

Wesley Armbrust scored the game-winning basket with 10 seconds left and Na Menehune beat Kahuku 46-44 to win the OIA Red championship last night at McKinley. Moanalua also beat Kahuku on Thursday to stay alive in the double-elimination tournament.

Na Menehune, who were 3-6 at one point, have won nine of their last 10 games to earn the OIA’s automatic berth in the state tournament beginning Wednesday.

"We were 3-6 and we knew we were going to make the OIA playoffs, but qualifying for states was our biggest deal," Moanalua coach Greg Tacon said. "We started to win a couple of games and our confidence began to build and I think we’re the same team we were then, we just learned a lot from all the close games we lost."

Armbrust, who has been instrumental in Na Menehune’s late-season rise, scored 14 of his game-high 18 points in the second half.

None was bigger than the winning layup with 10 seconds left. Moanalua, which hadn’t led since 19-17 at halftime, took the lead with 1:08 left on a jumper by Keven Amaral, who finished with 10 points.

Kahuku answered with 44 seconds as KJ Uluave finished an alley-oop pass from Bronson Beatty to make it 44-all.

The Red Raiders called a timeout, and Moanalua designed a play for Armbrust, who took the ball baseline and was fouled on the layup for a two-point lead.

After a timeout, Armbrust missed the free throw, and the ball eventually trickled out of bounds off his knee after Bronson Kepa tried to save it.

Instead of calling a timeout, Kahuku elected to go for it, Kawehena Johnson brought the ball up court, but was double-teamed after he passed the halfcourt line. He eventually got the ball back and tried a running jumper that bounced hard off the backboard and the rim as the buzzer sounded to give Moanalua the thrilling victory.

"The lane opened up and they had nobody to help from the weakside, so I took it," Armbrust said.

Kahuku coach Darren Johnson did not call a timeout with 7 seconds to go.

"I didn’t want the kids spending a whole timeout thinking about it," Johnson said. "We thought we could get good luck if we went fast with it, but (Moanalua) did a good job of double-teaming our point guard."

Johnson led the Red Raiders with 12 points, including eight in the second half. Senior Shairone Thompson was held to six points and five rebounds as both him and Moanalua big man Richard Villasenor battled foul trouble.

"That really hurt us," Johnson said.

Moanalua started the game 0-for-7 from the field with four turnovers.