honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, February 17, 2003

Spartans send Rainbow Wahine tumbling to fifth

Advertiser Staff

Hawai'i let an opportunity to pull into a share of second place in the Western Athletic Conference get away yesterday as San Jose State held off the Rainbow Wahine, 71-67, at the Spartans' Event Center.

UH (12-9) dropped into fifth place in WAC women's basketball at 6-6. It is a game behind second-place Tulsa and Rice, both 7-5, and a half game behind Fresno State (7-6). Eight of the 10 WAC teams are separated by three games.

The Rainbows play at Nevada Thursday and Fresno Saturday before coming home. Their longest regular-season road trip began like all the others; Hawai'i is now 0-5 away from home this season.

UH scored 10 straight points to pull ahead 14-9 yesterday. That was as good as it got.

SJSU (9-12, 5-7), which had lost its past four, scored nearly twice as many points as it did in a 54-40 loss in Hawai'i last month. It shot down Hawai'i's nationally ranked defense, which had been holding opponents to 57 points a game, behind Cricket Williams' 24 points and 10 assists. Williams, who averages 20 points a game, had just five in the first half.

"Our offense played well enough to win," UH coach Vince Goo said. "It was the best we've played on the road this year. But our defense broke down a few times. And Cricket just stepped up her game in the second half. She's a good 1-on-1 player and we fouled her."

The Spartans scored eight straight to go up 17-14 and never trailed again. They led 38-32 at the half. Hawai'i, down by as many as 13, cut its deficit to one on four occasions. It tied the score at 59 with less than four minutes remaining.

Williams immediately scored at the other end and the Spartans pulled to a 65-61 advantage. Freshman Trisha Nishimoto's 3-pointer cut the Rainbow Wahine deficit to one inside two minutes, but SJSU scored the next five to put the game away.

"I'm really pleased with Trisha," Goo said. "She had a great game. She was a spark offensively and she was guarding Williams. She showed a lot of guts."

Christen Roper led Hawai'i with 16 points and Jade Abele scored 13. Hawai'i had been averaging 50 points and 33 percent shooting on the road. It hit 48 percent of its shots yesterday.

"We had our chances," Goo said. "If you look at the statistics without seeing the score, it looks like we won this game. But in the first half we didn't have enough people playing real hard. We were down six at halftime and lost by four. That's the ballgame."


OVER AND BACK: Tulsa lost games at Boise State and UTEP last week and now shares second. The Golden Hurricane beat Boise by 31 and UTEP by 33 earlier in the season at home. ... The 86-60 loss at El Paso Saturday was a 59-point turnaround and the Miners' first victory over Tulsa in six years. ... Tulsa has lost its past three, and its past five away from home. ... Kim Willoughby's free-throw streak ended at 18 straight yesterday. Lynette Liu set the UH record of 31 in a row in 1985.

• • •