MILILANI — Pearl City rallied then held off No. 9 Mililani in an O'ahu Interscholastic Association Red West Division girls volleyball match last night. The scores were 20-25, 25-22, 25-21, 22-25, 15-11.

The Chargers improved to 6-2 while the host Trojans fell to 7-3. A crowd of about 250 took in the match, which lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Sophomore outside hitter Tonisha Buford powered Pearl City with 18 kills and senior Tiana Inong added 16.

"It was a real tight match. I think our girls we needed this win for confidence," said Pearl City coach Stephanie Shigemasa. "That fifth game was a big game because Mililani came back in the fourth game, so for us this was a big win."

Mililani forced a deciding fifth game after coming back from a 22-15 deficit, reeling off 10 straight points to win the game 25-22. The run, which came with Candace Soares serving for the Trojans, included four aces from the 5-foot-8 senior.

"Before the fifth game, I told (my team) to forget about that fourth game," said Shigemasa. "We can't do anything about it at that point, we just have to play with confidence in this one game to 15."

Mililani took a 5-3 lead in the fifth game, but Pearl City used a 7-2 run capped by an ace by Inong that put her team up 10-7.

The Trojans got a point off a Chargers error to make it 10-8, but would get no closer. A Mililani error was followed by a Marie Fujii ace that extended the Pearl City lead back to 12-8.

After the teams exchanged points, Mililani coach Val Crabbe called timeout facing a 13-9 deficit.

Soares answered with another kill, but Inong responded with a roll shot that barely cleared the net and fell in front of two Mililani defenders.

With the Chargers holding a 14-10 lead, the Trojans again went to Soares, who put away her match-high 26th kill, but Inong came through on match point to win it for Pearl City.

"I think everybody did well today as a team, it was a total team effort," Shigemasa said.

Crabbe lamented as the Trojans suffered their second loss in three days after dropping a four-game match against 'Aiea on Tuesday.

"We needed to finish it in that second set," Crabbe said. "We had four service errors in that game. Pearl City lost the first game because they had six service errors. It comes down to our serving, we really needed to finish that second set."

Pearl City avenged a home loss to Mililani on Sept. 4.

"We made some adjustments on our blocking (since that match)," Shigemasa said. "We've been working on that — to key on Mililani's big hitters. I think they did exactly what we worked on in practice."