UH picked to finish near bottom

The Hawaii men's basketball team was picked seventh and eighth in Western Athletic Conference coaches and media preseason polls released yesterday.

Nevada was tabbed to win the league in both polls.

The Rainbow Warriors had no players in the conference's first and second preseason teams—including touted junior college All-American transfer Roderick Flemings.

“;I think we will finish a lot higher than projected,”; coach Bob Nash said. “;Having said that, we have a lot of work to do and still have a lot of proving to do.”;

The Hawaii women's basketball team was selected to finish seventh in the coaches poll and sixth in the media poll. Boise State was picked to finish first in both.

OIA playoffs on tap for 2 sports

Oahu Interscholastic Association volleyball Red Conference playoffs start tomorrow with four matches. At McKinley, Radford plays Roosevelt and McKinley takes on Waianae. At Pearl City, Campbell meets Farrington and Pearl City plays Kalaheo.

The OIA football playoffs begin with Red Conference games Friday and Saturday. Waipahu (5-3, 3-3) takes on Kaimuki (4-4, 3-3) at Kaiser Stadium on Friday, and Mililani (4-4, 4-2) and Kailua (2-5, 2-4) play Saturday at Mililani's field.

Honu pound BeachBoys in HWB

The North Shore Honu scored four runs in the fifth and five in the eighth on the way to a 14-5 Hawaii Winter Baseball victory over the Waikiki BeachBoys last night at Hans L'Orange Park.

Kyle Morton hit his league-leading fourth home run, a two-run shot, in the ninth for North Shore. Corey Brown also homered for the Honu.

Yasutaka Hattori (2-1) got the win. He allowed three hits and two runs in five innings, striking out eight and walking one.

North Shore outhit Waikiki 11-6, and the teams combined for 18 walks, with the Honu benefiting from 12.

The Honu improved to 5-9 and the BeachBoys fell to 6-8.

The first game, between the Honolulu Sharks and the West Oahu CaneFires, was canceled due to rain. No makeup was announced.