Too many hills, not enough valleys.
Too many hills, not enough valleys.
It might have been a big part of the narrative for the UH-Hilo women’s basketball season, but it was surely the reason the Vulcans came up short, 64-47 on Saturday night against Azusa Pacific.
Starting the game with a chance to gain the Pacific West Conference playoffs with a victory and a Point Loma loss at Chaminade, the Vulcans went basket-for-basket with the 19-1 Cougars until a few minutes into the second quarter and then the bottom seemed to fall out.
At the end, it didn’t matter after Point Loma won its game and eliminated Hawaii Hilo (10-10 PWC, 10-15 overall), even before the Vulcans were done. But in reality, the end came even sooner than that for coach David Kaneshiro’s team.
Freshman Patience Taylor hot a 10-footer from the baseline with 7:26 left in the second quarter to give UHH a 21-19 lead but then the basket closed up tight.
Azusa Pacific (19-1, 25-3), took over at that point, its full court press wearing on the Vulcans as the game went on.
After that 28-11 Hilo lead, the Cougars ran off a 28-11 streak to take a 47-30 lead and it was all over at that juncture.
“Give (Azusa Pacific) credit,” said Kaneshiro, “that’s as good a team as we have in our league and they lead defensively in a number of categories. They average forcing their opponents into 24 turnovers a game and that’s something we talked about leading up to this but it had an effect on us, it did wear us down.”
The Vulcans finished with 23 turnovers — 13 of them in the second half — and were able to force the Cougars into just 12.
“Anytime you have 23 empty possessions, it isn’t going to be a good night,” Kaneshiro said, “but it says something about our defense that with that many turnovers, we were able to hold them to 64 points, somehow.”
On Senior Night, the Vulcans had hoped for their best game of the year and maybe and off night for Azusa Pacific but that didn’t materialize.
“We’ve seen a lot of presses of different kinds from various teams throughout the year,” said senior Felicia Kolb, “so I don’t know that this one was any different but it seemed like when we lost momentum, try as we did, we just couldn’t get it back.”
That, perhaps is the difference between Azusa Pacific and everyone else. The Vulcans had dry spells against many teams this season but usually found ways to get it back, until Saturday.
“They’re a very good team,” Kolb said, “they have a lot of seniors (six) and they’ve been playing together for four years, so this was sort of their year.”
And for Kolb and fellow seniors Alia Alvarez and Ashley Duyao, this was the end of their collegiate careers.
“Sadness,” said Kolb, who fouled out of her final game. “I’m sort of speechless, I feel like I’ll get up tomorrow and go to practice, but I know it won’t be there.
“We gave it all we had,” she said. “It just wasn’t enough.”