Wahine end with a loss

BOISE, Idaho » The Hawaii women's basketball team will have to start a new winning streak in next week's Western Athletic Conference tournament at Las Cruces, N.M.

The Boise State Broncos, needing a victory to claim the No. 1 seed in the women's bracket, ended the Rainbow Wahine's winning streak at eight with a 66-56 win last night.

The Wahine (15-13, 9-7 WAC) finished tied with Fresno State for fourth place, but UH gets the No. 5 seed in the tournament due to the league's tie-breaking procedures.

The Wahine play the Bulldogs in the first round Wednesday with tip-off at 9 a.m. Hawaii time.

"It is somewhat of a disappointment. We played the hardest we could play, but we took one on the chin. We'll find out what kind of fighters we are next week," said Hawaii acting head coach Pat Charity.

The game was even for the first 6 minutes. Tanya Smith's two free throws put the Wahine in front 11-10 with 13:57 to play. That was UH's last lead.

Nadia Begay then hit the first of her three first-half 3-pointers to put Boise State (21-9, 12-4 WAC) back in front. The Broncos would outscore UH 19-10 the rest of the half for a 32-23 lead at intermission.

The Wahine struggled from the field in the first half with a .290 (9-for-31) shooting percentage. Turnovers led to 13 Boise State points.

"We had a real hard time finishing. We had good looks, but our shots were off to the right and left," Charity said. "They were in our face (defensively) but we are used to that. We would shake ourselves loose, but didn't make the shots."

Hawaii started well in the second half, cutting the BSU lead to four points (39-35) on a jumper by Iwona Zagrobelna at the 14:55 mark.

"We wanted to try to spread the floor, penetrate and get them in foul trouble in the second half. If we couldn't shoot, we wanted to kick out and shoot, but we didn't hit the outside shot."

Hawaii was just 2-for-15 from beyond the arc.

The Wahine, who held Boise State's 6-foot-2 senior center Michelle Hessing scoreless in the first half, couldn't stop her in the second half (13 points) as the Broncos concentrated on pounding the ball inside.

Hessing and Rebecca Kepilino then led a Bronco surge that helped BSU build a comfortable 15-point (56-41) lead with 7:08 left in the game.

The closest the Wahine came after that was a seven-point deficit on three occasions, the last with 1:01 on the clock.

Smith recorded her 10th double-double of the season with 13 points and 13 rebounds. For the second consecutive game, Amy Kotani tied her career high with 12 points.

Janevia Taylor added 11 points and Zagrobelna had 10.

The Wahine were without senior center Brittany Grice, out with a lower left leg injury, for a second consecutive game.