TUCSON, Ariz. » In quick succession Saturday, the Hawaii softball team lost its starting second baseman and then its coach.

The Rainbow Wahine battled on but couldn’t overcome North Dakota State, falling 9-7 in an elimination game at the NCAA softball tournament’s Tucson Regional at Rita Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium.

Western Athletic Conference regular-season champion UH (44-9) heads home with a season-ending, four-game losing streak after getting through the regular season without back-to-back losses.

"You can’t take nothing away from our girls," associate head coach Deirdre Wisneski said. "We’ve come a long way, we’ve traveled a lot, we’ve been through ups and downs and (there’s) nothing to hang our heads about. It was a really awesome season."

But it was hardly the ending the Rainbow Wahine envisioned, in a number of ways.

Coolen, rarely heated enough to draw an ejection, was forced to watch from atop a short flight of stairs beyond the right-field wall after he was tossed in the bottom of the second inning.

With North Dakota State’s Brandi Enriquez at first base, teammate Jenina Ortega grounded a ball toward UH second baseman Dara Pagaduan. As Pagaduan collected the ball, she and Enriquez collided, knocking both players to the ground.

Enriquez was tagged out later in the play after running through second base, ending the inning, but not before Alex Sobrero crossed home plate to tie the score at 1-all. The lack of a dead-ball call drew the ire of Coolen, who was on the field quickly to object. He left the game for good a minute later, and declined comment afterward.

"It doesn’t happen very often that Coach Coolen gets tossed out of a game," Wisneski acknowledged. "The call, in my opinion, should’ve been a dead ball (with the runner being called out). That kind of stuff, it would bother any coach. And then for our player to be down in that situation and the umpire still saying it’s a safe call, obviously made him red and lose it a little bit.

"We had to pick up the pieces from there and we kept fighting and we just couldn’t come up

with the win."

It was a back-and-forth ordeal after that, before the Bison took the lead for good in the fifth. Presley Glaser scored the tying run on an error by UH shortstop Jessica Iwata, and Sobrero hit into a fielder’s choice that brought home Brea Konz, who had reached with a double. North Dakota State added an insurance run in the sixth on a solo homer by Taylor Mortensen.

The Wahine came out swinging after the wild ending to the second inning, with catcher Kayla Wartner blasting a two-run homer over the center-field wall, more than 220 feet away, and Sarah Robinson following with a solo shot to left that put UH up 4-1 in the third.

The lead was short-lived, as North Dakota State tallied four runs in the bottom half, two of them coming after UH starter Kaia Parnaby was called for her second illegal pitch of the game on a play that would have ended the inning. But instead of flying out to right for the third out, Amanda Grable ripped a run-scoring double to tie it at 4-all. She scored a few minutes later when Wartner was called for obstruction on a play at the plate following Sobrero’s single to center.

That hit brought an end to Parnaby’s night, as UH’s typically dominant pitchers struggled for the fourth consecutive game.

Wartner drilled another two-run homer — this one a low liner to right — to put UH back on top, 6-5, in the fourth.

"I just wanted to do it for Dara, actually," Wartner said of her injured teammate.

UH didn’t have a diagnosis Saturday on Pagaduan, who was clearly shaken by the collision; she is expected to see a doctor today.

"We don’t know what’s going on right now," Wisneski said.

After the Bison tied it at 6 with Ortega’s solo home run in the fourth, the Wahine took the lead one more time, at 7-6, when pinch hitter Jocelyn Enrique singled to right to score Alex Aguirre in the top of the fifth. As they had before, the Bison answered, then held on to win a game Wartner said was easily UH’s wildest of the season. Reliever Stephanie Ricketts was tagged with the loss.

"A lot of weird calls, a lot of weird situations that happened, but I think we did a good job sticking in the game and fighting," she said.