The Rainbow Wahine basketball team goes after its second tournament title today at 5 p.m. when it plays Nevada-Las Vegas in the championship game of the Hawaii Invitational at the Stan Sheriff Center. Hawaii in tourney final
By Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.comHawaii beat back several Kentucky runs in the second half to defeat the Wildcats 70-59 in the first round last night. UNLV reached the title game with a 60-56 victory over Long Island University.
LIU and Kentucky play for third place at 3 p.m.
"We wanted to look for fast-break opportunities and if they weren't there, we wanted to get into our offense more smoothly. We were much better tonight (than in the previous tournament). We were able to execute in both halves," said UH coach Vince Goo.
UH point guard Michelle Gabriel said, "We worked on pushing the ball upcourt faster and getting into our offense quicker."
Even when Kentucky applied a full-court press, the Wahine (4-2) were able to handle it and get into their offense with 15 to 18 seconds left on the shot clock.
April Atuaia was the high scorer for Hawaii with 17 points after going 0-for-4 from the field in the opening half.
"In the second half I was trying to look for better shots than the first half and eventually they fell in," said Atuaia.
Christen Roper scored 13 points and had 13 rebounds, while Jade Abele had eight of UH's 20 assists to go with her 13 points.
The Wahine practiced all week on putting some up-tempo into their transition game and it worked in the first half as they jumped to a 33-18 lead against the cold-shooting Wildcats (2-4).
UH started with a 10-2 burst on three layups by Roper and baskets by Gabriel and Abele and never trailed in the opening half.
Kentucky closed to four points, 11-7, on Jenny Pfieffer's 3-pointer at 13:34 and to five points, 20-15, with 9:02 left in the half on a trey by Sara Potts, but managed just one more bucket the remainder of the half, a 3-pointer by Pfieffer 2:33 before intermission.
Hawaii protected the ball very well in the first 20 minutes with just two turnovers and caused Kentucky to turn the ball over nine times.
The Wahine put an exclamation point on the end of the half as Natasja Allen hit a jumper from the foul line with 1:19 to go. She then took a lob pass from Abele, who had made her third steal near midcourt to nullify a Wildcat last-shot attempt, for a breakaway layup with three seconds on the clock.
The Wildcats connected on just seven of 32 field-goal attempts in the opening half for a .219 shooting percentage.
"Defensively, they took shots we wanted them to be attempting. These were shots we didn't think they liked according to their personnel and what we saw on film," said Goo. "For instance, we didn't want their No. 3 (Potts) to shoot 3-pointers because she hits 50 percent of them."
That changed dramatically early in the second half as the Wildcats made five of their first seven field-goal attempts, put together a 12-4 run and cut the UH lead to five points, 37-32.
Two baskets by Atuaia stopped the bleeding, and a 3-pointer by Milia Macfarlane at 10:43 restored Hawaii's double-digit lead, 48-37.
After Pfieffer's steal and layup brought Kentucky to within nine points, 48-39, the Wahine went on a 10-2 spurt with Amy Sanders scoring half of those points.
When Kentucky pulled within 10 points, 67-57, with 1:55 left, Goo called a 30-second timeout.
"We had just missed a backdoor layup and a fast-break layup that could have put the game away," said Goo. "We told the team we didn't want to give them penetration and we didn't want them going to the free-throw line, which they did a lot in the second half. We wanted to run the clock on offense."
Jennifer Humphrey made a bucket with 39 seconds left, but UH killed the clock as Trisha Nishimoto hit one and Atuaia made two free throws.
Nevada-Las Vegas 60, Long Island 56: The Lady Rebels overcame a one-point halftime deficit and held on to edge the Blackbirds by making 17 of 19 from the free-throw line to offset 34 percent shooting from the field. The Lady Rebels (5-1) also forced 29 LIU turnovers that they cashed in for 25 points.
Sheena Moore scored 15 points for UNLV. Tamika Dudley topped LIU with 24 points.
The Blackbirds (0-6) led 31-30 at the half despite 17 turnovers as Dudley scored 14 points. Dudley's 11th point moved her into third place on LIU's all-time scoring list. She has scored 1,341 points in her career.
Hawaii 70, Kentucky 59
WILDCATS (2-4) fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Potts 5 13 0 2 35 7 2 12 Adams 2 10 3 5 29 2 7 7 Ellis 1 2 0 0 15 3 0 2 Payne 1 4 1 1 11 1 0 3 Jones 0 3 0 0 10 2 1 0 Humphrey 5 8 1 2 22 7 0 11 Pfieffer 5 17 0 0 31 5 1 12 Tate 1 5 0 0 18 4 0 2 Helm 4 6 1 2 29 9 1 10 Team 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 Totals 24 68 6 12 200 43 12 59 WAHINE (4-2) fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Abele 5 9 3 5 35 1 8 13 Nishimoto 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 1 Macfarlane 2 4 0 0 8 2 0 5 Roper 6 14 1 3 34 13 1 13 Jones 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 Gabriel 2 5 1 2 31 7 4 6 Sanders 2 6 0 0 12 2 2 5 Atuaia 5 13 6 7 35 9 4 17 Allen 5 12 0 0 34 10 1 10 Spooner 0 1 0 0 8 1 0 0 Team 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 Totals 27 65 12 19 200 47 20 70 Key -- fg: field goals; fga: field goals attempted; ft: free throws; fta: free throws attempted; min: minutes; reb: rebounds; a: assists; tp: total points.
Halftime -- Hawaii 33, Kentucky 18
3-point goals -- Kentucky5-20 (Pfieffer 2-11, Potts 2-5, Adams 0-2, Helm 1-1, Payne 0-1), Hawaii 4-15 (Gabriel 1-3, Atuaia 1-3, Sanders 1-4, Macfarlane 1-2, Abele 0-3). Personal fouls -- Kentucky 20, Hawaii 12. Technical fouls -- none. Steals -- Kentucky 3 (Humphrey, Pfieffer, Helm), Hawaii 5 (Abele 3, Atuaia 2). Blocked shots -- Kentucky 3 (Tate, Potts), Hawaii 6 (Allen 3, Abele, Roper, Gabriel). Turnovers -- Kentucky 11, Hawaii 9. Officials -- Brian Yamasaki, Derik Labenz, Ryan Sueoka. T -- NA. Tickets issued -- 1,547.
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