Hawaii holds on to beat Idaho, snap 5-game skid

The Hawaii women's basketball team climbed a small hill last night, reached the top and managed to stay there against an Idaho team that didn't quit.

The Wahine withstood two Idaho spurts in the final 10 minutes to defeat the Vandals 71-61 in a Western Athletic Conference game last night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Tanya Smith hit a career-high 11 field goals and scored 24 points as Hawaii (7-10, 1-4) halted a five-game losing streak before a crowd of 223.

"We wanted to go inside, not only with our post people, but with our guards and wings to take advantage of our height advantage," UH coach Jim Bolla said.

Pam Tambini, who scored 16 points and tied Smith for the rebound lead with nine, said, "The win is a bit of a relief. We knew that they hustled and that they would come out hard. They were 0-4 just like us and they wanted a win."

In the first half, the Wahine scored 34 of their 41 points in the paint with layup after layup.

The tone was set by UH in the first 3 minutes when Smith scored on four layups and Saundra Cariaga made a fifth off Janevia Taylor's steal to give the Wahine a 10-2 lead.

The Vandals (3-13, 0-5) then put a 9-2 run on the scoreboard, led by Liz Witte's two 3-pointers to close to 12-11.

Consecutive layups -- by Iwona Zagrobelna, Tambini on a fast break, Brittany Grice on a left-to-right reverse layup and Cariaga with a fast-break finish -- extended the UH lead to 20-12.

Idaho cut the UH lead to 22-18 on jumpers by Hannah Wells and Sara Dennehy, but the Wahine went on to outscore the Vandals 13-6 for a 35-24 lead with 4:02 left before halftime.

Amber Lee's layup off a long pass from Cassidy Chretien put UH up by 12 points, 41-29, but Dennehy's layup created the 41-31 halftime Wahine lead.

Hawaii started the second half by hitting four of six field-goal attempts to increase its lead to 49-33 at the 15:58 mark. Smith had two more layups, Taylor hit a 5-foot jumper from the left side and Tambini followed her own miss with a rebound and layup.

After the timeout, Smith banged home two more layups to go 10-for-10 from the floor and Cariaga connected on a 3-pointer to offset Charlotte Otero's jumper from the foul line and up the UH lead to 56-35 at the 13:10 mark.

Tambini's 3-pointer upped the lead to 61-40, but the Vandals scored the next eight points on two treys by Witte and Wells' layup off an inbound pass to stay within striking distance at 61-48.

Smith's layup with 7:33 left ended the run and left UH holding a 63-48 lead.

The final Idaho run (8-1) cut the Wahine lead to 64-58 with 4:34 left.

Zagrobelna made two free throws at 4:16, and after several misses and turnovers at both ends, Tambini connected on a 3-pointer with 1:20 remaining to give UH a comfortable 10-point lead again, 68-58.

"If we don't have the 21-point lead, it is a different story at the end. We had 24 assists on 30 buckets, which means we were running our stuff," Bolla said.

"We were fortunate to get points inside and didn't have to shoot from outside."

Smith added, "I feel like that Fresno gave us that extra bit of confidence in the second half. We need to get back to the way we played good competition at the beginning of the season. I think tonight was the start of that."

Hawaii 71, Idaho 61

Vandals (3-13, 0-5 WAC)

	fg	fga	ft	fta	min	reb	a	tp
Witte	5	12	0	0	36	3	2	15
Dennehy	6	14	2	2	30	2	0	15
Madison	5	10	3	10	37	9	3	13
Otero	2	8	3	4	40	2	6	8
Westbrooks	0	3	0	0	18	3	1	0
Jones	0	2	0	0	8	0	2	0
Koppen	0	2	0	0	8	0	0	0
Wells	5	10	0	0	20	6	3	10
Schlotthauer	0	0	0	0	3	1	0	0
TEAM						4
Totals	23	61	8	16	200	30	17	61

Rainbow Wahine (7-10, 1-4 WAC)

	fg	fga	ft	fta	min	reb	a	tp
Smith	11	12	2	3	31	9	1	24
Tambini	7	18	0	0	40	9	5	16
Zagrobelna	2	5	2	2	15	5	1	6
Taylor	3	9	0	0	36	5	8	6
Cariaga	3	6	3	5	35	4	2	10
Chretien	0	2	0	0	9	2	3	0
Lee	1	1	0	0	3	0	0	2
Grice	3	7	1	2	31	5	4	7
TEAM						4
Totals	30	60	8	12	200	43	24	71

Key -- fg: field goals made; fga: field goals attempted; ft: free throws made; fta: free throws attempted; min: minutes played; reb: rebounds; a: assists; tp: total points.

Halftime -- Hawaii 41, Idaho 31

3-point goals -- Idaho 7-26 (Witte 5-12, Dennehy 1-4, Otero 1-4, Jones 0-1, Wells 0-1, Westbrooks 0-2, Koppen 0-2), Hawaii 3-6 (Tambini 2-4, Cariaga 1-2). Personal fouls -- Idaho 11, Hawaii 17. Fouled out -- Grice.

Steals -- Idaho 8 (Dennehy 2, Wells 2, Witte, Madison, Otero, Jones), Hawaii 7 (Taylor 3, Cariaga 2, Chretien 2). Blocked shots -- Hawaii 7 (Grice 5, Cariaga, Zagrobelna). Turnovers -- Idaho 16 (Madison 5, Otero 4, Witte 2, Wells 2, Westbrooks, Schlotthauer, TEAM), Hawaii 21 (Smith 4, Taylor 4, Cariaga 3, Tambini 2, Zagrobelna 2, Chretien 2, Lee 2, Grice 2).

Officials -- Jack Jones, Wanda Szmeremeta, Jim Morrell. A--223.

WAC standings

	WAC	Overall
	W	L	Pct.	GB	W	L
Boise State	4	0	1.000	--	13	4
Fresno State	3	1	.750	1	10	6
Nevada	3	1	.750	1	9	7
New Mexico State	3	1	.750	1	8	8
Louisiana Tech	3	1	.750	1	8	9
Utah State	2	2	.500	2	6	10
Hawaii	1	4	.200	3 1/2	7	10
San Jose State	0	4	.000	4	1	17
Idaho	0	5	.000	4 1/2	3	13

Saturday
Fresno State 75, Hawaii 69 OT
Nevada 74, San Jose State 47
Boise State 68, Louisiana Tech 47
New Mexico State 70, Idaho 65
Monday
Louisiana Tech 69, Utah State 54
Yesterday
Hawaii 71, Idaho 61
Today
Fresno St. at San Jose St.
Nevada at Louisiana Tech
Saturday
Boise St. at Hawaii, 7 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center
New Mexico St. at Nevada
San Jose St. at Utah St.
Sunday
Louisiana Tech at Idaho