This is turning into the road trip from hell for UH-Hilo’s basketball teams, and its not over yet.
The UHH men led by as much as 14 points Thursday night at Point Loma but fell 91-78 in San Diego, their third consecutive loss.
The Sea Lions outscored UHH (10-6, 7-4 Pacific West Conference) 46-27 during a second-half stretch, dropping the Vuls into a tie for fourth place, a half-game behind Point Loma.
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Max Kunnert and Donald McHenry extended the Vulcans lead 45-40 in the second half, but the Sea Lions didn’t stay down for long.
“I thought our attitude changed.” Point Loma coach Matt Logie said. “We had to figure out a different solution and give our guys credit for adjusting and believing. They executed our adjusted. We were able to find a rhythm as the game went along and put together a really good 25-minute stretch of basketball.”
McHenry finished with 21 points, Darren Williams had 18 and Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones finished with 14 in a game in which each team shot well. Point Loma (11-8, 7-4) shot 55.6% and 19 of 20 from the free-throw line. Kaden Anderson collected 22 points and 12 rebounds.
UHH shot 52.6%, including 11 of 22 on 3-pointers, but wasn’t as active at the line, going 7 of 12.
Earlier, the UHH women lost their fourth game in a row, 67-50.
The Vulcans (7-6, 4-5) were up 41-36 with 3:40 to go in the third, but they went stone cold in the next nine minutes as the Sea Lions outscored them 31-9.
Mandi Kawaha led UHH with 22 points.
Both UHH squads will try to salvage the road trip Saturday at Biola.