ASSOCIATED PRESS Hawaii's Brittany Grice blocked a shot by Nevada's Jessica Presslar yesterday.

Wahine done

Bolla's first season as coach
ends with first round-loss
in WAC tournament

RENO, Nev. » It was just five days earlier that the Hawaii Rainbow Wahine basketball team swaggered out of the Lawlor Events Center with a road win against the last-place, sad sack Wolf Pack.

Yesterday in the first round of the WAC Tournament, it was the same location but a much different ending -- and not a happy one at all for the Rainbow Wahine.

Hawaii squandered a nine-point second-half lead, and host Nevada ended UH's season with a 65-61 victory.

Meghan McGuire led four Wolf Pack players in double-figure scoring with 16 points. Amy Sanders paced Hawaii with a game-high 21 points and 12 rebounds, as the Wahine finished their first season under coach Jim Bolla at 11-15. Nevada, the WAC's 10th-seeded team, improved to 8-21 and advanced to today's quarterfinals against Rice.

Seventh-seeded UH was severely handicapped by the loss of senior forward Jade Abele, but Bolla at first said he felt the officiating had a lot to do with the outcome. The Wolf Pack made 22 of 28 free throws, compared to 12 of 14 for the Wahine, and Nevada was called for 17 fouls compared to 22 for Hawaii.

"For being in the situation they were in with Jade being out, I'm really proud," Bolla said at the postgame news conference. "They could've given up and they didn't. (Nevada) went on an 11-0 run, and we basically ran out of time. You can't continue to play against eight people. You figure that out."

Bolla later backed off a little on the officiating issue and complimented Nevada's comeback and ability to make plays when it needed to.

"The bottom line is Nevada was the better team, they played better than us," Bolla said.

The Wolf Pack certainly did in the second half.

Hawaii led 26-21 at the break, but Nevada took the lead for good on McGuire's 3-pointer, and that began a nine-point run that ended with Jessica Preslar's fast-break bucket and a 52-44 Wolf Pack lead with 5:05 left.

The Wahine rallied and closed to 62-61 on a pair of free throws by Pam Tambini with 15 seconds left. Nevada made the lead two points again on Traci Graham's free throw with 14 seconds left. That set up a final shot attempt by Taylor from about 17 feet that missed and was rebounded by Preslar.

Bolla said the play is designed for Sanders to be the first option.

McGuire said the Wahine missed Abele, who injured her left knee in last Saturday's loss at Fresno State.

"They were still aggressive and they still attacked. Amy Sanders had a great game. But (Abele) brings a lot to their team, a lot of leadership."

Alofa Toiaivao started in Abele's place and scored 13 points with eight rebounds in 31 minutes.

UH beat Nevada here, 62-54, last Thursday and 71-43 at the Stan Sheriff Center on Jan. 1. This was the first WAC tournament win for the Nevada women since joining the conference for the 2000-2001 season.

"I feel like a burden has been lifted off our backs," said senior forward April Bankston, who scored 11 points. "We were just fed up and wanted it more."

Hawaii shot 32 percent from the floor (negating its 22 offensive rebounds) and committed 20 turnovers.

"I think our defense was tremendous," Nevada coach Kim Gervasoni said. "Our defense created a lot of offense for us. They want to pound it inside. Because of our ball pressure they couldn't do that a lot."

Nevada 65, Hawaii 61