ATHERTON, California – It was a tale of two halves as Hawai'i Hilo Men's Basketball opened its Northern California road trip with a 75-69 defeat to Menlo Monday evening in Pacific West Conference play at the Haynes-Prim Pavilion.

The Vulcans had built up as large of a lead as 15 points late in the opening period and took a double-digit advantage into halftime. The Oaks managed to claw their way back into the game outscoring the Vulcans, 27-14, through 14 minutes of second-half action to reach a tied score of 59-all. From there, Menlo went on a 10-2 run to take a seven-point lead with a minute remaining.

Hawai'i Hilo went 7 of 31 (.225) from the field in the second half and 1 of 12 from beyond the arc. The Vulcans had separate stretches of four minutes, five minutes and seven minutes without having made a field goal.

Menlo fared slightly better at a .428 second-half shooting clip but also finished 28 of 39 (.718) overall at the free throw line — the most shots made at the charity stripe by an opponent this season.

Julio Montes II led the Vulcans with 14 points while Nadjrick Peat just missed out on a double-double with 10 points (5-8 FG) and nine rebounds.

The opening half was a bit of a reverse of the final 20 minutes as the Vulcans had gone on a 24-5 run while shooting 11 of 14 at the free throw line during that stretch.

Hawai'i Hilo moved to 8-8 in PacWest play (15-11 overall) as Menlo moved to a 6-11 conference record (10-15 overall).

The Vulcans moved to a tie at No. 7 in the PacWest standings with HPU. Point Loma (14-2) and Biola (14-4)  have wrapped up two of six PacWest Championships postseason tournament spots with Academy of Art (11-5), Westmont (10-7), Chaminade (10-9), Fresno Pacific (9-9), Hawai'i Hilo (8-8), HPU (8-8), Concordia (7-9) and Azusa Pacific (7-10) all vying for the final four berths. Menlo is slotted at No. 11.

UP NEXT: Wednesday, Feb. 19 (3:30 PM / 5:30 PM PT) vs Dominican (San Rafael, California / Conlan Center)