HILO, Hawai`i—In the end, a little help was all they needed, and a little help was just what they did not get.

Andre Arissol's three-pointer with one second left gave visiting Chaminade an 82-80 win over playoff hopeful Hawai`i Hilo on Saturday night at the Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium in front of 713 highly entertained fans. Earlier on the mainland, two games that looked good on paper to run in UH Hilo's favor, went the other way to end the Vulcans' season shortly after they tipped off against the Silverswords.

Thus, the Vulcans' season closed at 12-14 overall and 10-12 in the Pacific West Conference. No. 5 regionally ranked Chaminade moves on to the PacWest Tournament as the No. 3 seed with a 22-6 overall record and a 16-6 PacWest mark.

UH Hilo finished one-game out of tournament play, but even with a win tonight, they would have tied for fifth with Academy of Art—who upset Biola on the road tonight, and Holy Names—who was upended by Fresno Pacific. Those two squads finished tied at 11-11 and will be the fifth and sixth seeds respectively.

"We didn't get the help we needed, but we also had our chances at other times during the season," said head coach GE Coleman after the game. "Regardless, I am really proud of this team, to fight through injuries the way that we did and put up a fight every night was impressive. They were fun to be around, I enjoyed them as people and I am really going to miss this group."

It was the final college game for seniors Larry Bush, James Griffin and Denyhm Brooke. And what a game it was.

Chaminade, who put up 114 points on the Vulcans when they met to open PacWest play last December, came out of the gates like they were going to do more of the same. They opened up a 27-10 lead as the Vulcans missed 11 of their first 12 shots.

UH Hilo started to find their range after that, climbing back to within six points (40-34) after Jordan Graves hit a trio of free throws. The halftime count was 42-34, Silverswords.

UH Hilo went on a 9-2 run to start the second half and pulled to within a point (44-43) on a basket by Kupaa Harrison. Chaminade answered back with a run of its own and lead by as many as nine with ten minutes remaining.

A dunk and three-point play by Brooke pulled UHH back to within five (67-62) and Griffin's trey with 4:25 remaining made it 73-71 Chaminade. At the 3:46 mark, UH Hilo took its first lead of the game on a clutch bucket by Brooke, the 6-8 senior.

There would be seven lead changes in the final four minutes. Bush, who sat out most of the second half in foul trouble, burst by everyone in the paint and banked it off the glass for a 78-77 Vulcan lead with 1:04 left.  Chaminade then missed on their next possession but Arissol made the first of his two-game changing plays moments later with a steal and fastbreak basket (79-78) with 31 seconds to go.

Bush countered at the other end, coming out of a Vulcan timeout, off a precision pass from Harrison to give the Vulcans an 80-79 lead with 12 seconds left. That left Chaminade to call time and set up a play would surely involve Grant Dressler, one of the top players in the PacWest. Dressler did drive the lane but couldn't get a clean shot so he passed back to Arissol. The guard then drained a high-arching three with one second left on the clock.

UHH had 0.5 second to work with on the inbound, but couldn't get a shot off as time expired.

Tyler Cartaino and Erik Scheive led the Silverswords with 22 points each.

Graves had 15 points, six assists, four steals and five rebounds for the Vulcans. Bush finished with 14 points in just 20 minutes, Harrison had 13 with nine rebounds and four assists, Griffin finished with 12 and Cleo Cain had 10 off the bench.

The Vulcans had outscored Chaminade 46-37 in the second half until Arissol's back-breaker.

"This one hurts like crazy right now," Coleman added. "But we made great strides this year and have a solid building block for the future with the kids we have coming back."