Photos by Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Kendis Leeburg led the Wahine with 23 points and nine rebounds last night against Air Force.
Outstanding execution leads to a 77-46 win and Hawaii's ninth consecutive victory
By Cindy LuisStar-Bulletin
It was a victory that left the Hawaii players feeling satisfied, almost as satisfied as they felt following last week's overtime win at Fresno State. Maybe the score didn't indicate how hard the Wahine played in the 77-46 thrashing of the Falcons, but they knew the trick to making it look easy was doing what they needed to do when they needed to do it.
"We wanted to come out and play hard," said senior center Kendis Leeburg after game highs of 23 points and nine rebounds. "We wanted to execute our plays. There was a lot of team play tonight, a lot of good passing and trying to find each other.
"We've had a different high scorer almost every night and that's good to see. You want to see everyone be able to step it up. If someone's off, you want to know that someone else can put the ball in."
Midway through the second half, the Wahine put the finishing touches on the rout with a 12-0 spree, punctuated by freshman Raelene Howard - the WAC's leading 3-point shooter - hitting her one and only trey of the game for a 58-32 margin.
Hawaii coach Vince Goo was so into the flow of the game that he didn't realize most of his starters were still in with four minutes left in the game. By that time, Hawaii was up, 68-42.
"Did you think we poured it on?" he asked reporters afterward. "I thought we were just rotating our players well. We've had games when we didn't finish well. We just want to play well at every position, no matter who was in there.
"We're pretty pleased with those two scoring stretches, but there were also stretches where Air Force came down and played pretty good defense, hustled and scored on second chances."
The Falcons, who played at the NCAA Division II level last season, also showed balance in scoring. The problem for coach Marti Gasser was her players didn't score enough - three had eight points each, another two scored six apiece.
"We have not had a consistent player yet this season," said Gasser, whose team lost its fifth straight game. "We're averaging about 50 points a game and you're not going to win ballgames doing that. We've got to find someone to step it up.
"Hawaii has great balance and a tremendous point guard (sophomore BJ Itoman) who can do everything. We don't have those kinds of players. I don't think we played very disciplined ball. We didn't get to the free-throw line once in the second half (Hawaii was 20 of 28 from the line, Air Force 0 for 2 for the game) and that wasn't because of officiating. We weren't aggressive, weren't penetrating. We didn't show any heart."
Gasser might take some comfort in knowing that, just a month ago, the Wahine were saying the same things about themselves. Hawaii struggled to a 1-3 start before finding itself ... and its confidence.
"We knew we had to come out hard because Air Force was going to," said Cockett, who finished with 16 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocked shots. "We came out confident, not overconfident.
"There's going to be a lot of teams that play hard in the WAC. We will just play them one at a time."
Hawaii next plays host to UNLV (2-12, 0-3) tomorrow at 7 p.m. The Lady Rebels, at the bottom of the Pacific Division with Air Force, lost at San Diego State last night, 92-48.
The Wahine's first real conference challenge comes next week when they travel to Colorado State and Wyoming, two of the teams that also are unbeaten in the Pacific Division.
"We haven't gone against the big names in the league yet and we're getting ourselves prepared," Leeburg said. "I see Colorado State and San Diego State as our biggest challenges. We know we've got to have balance with our inside game and on the perimeter.
"I don't know if we are 30 points better than Air Force but we were tonight. They were shorter and my two-inch vertical did me proud."
The Falcons had three players with eight points: Kallie Quinn, Shilah Hudson and Heather Meyer, who also had seven rebounds.