AZUSA, Calif. » Despite a season of building cohesion, one player proved pivotal in Hawaii Pacific’s quest to win the inaugural Pacific West Conference women’s basketball tournament.
Melody Ladrido injured her left knee in the second half of Saturday’s final, and Academy of Art exploited her absence to rout the top-seeded Sea Warriors 75-49 at Azusa Pacific’s Felix Events Center.
The third-seeded Urban Knights (23-8) earned the PacWest’s automatic berth to the NCAA Division II West Regional and left HPU (19-7) to hope for an at-large spot.
"I definitely think that we’re one of the hotter teams in our conference," said HPU coach Reid Takatsuka, whose team won 14 of its final 18 games. "I believe that we deserve one of those eight spots. Given the chance, I think we could do some damage."
Ladrido did her own damage in the final four minutes of the first half. The senior guard scored nine of her team-high 13 points during a 14-0 spree that put the Sea Warriors ahead 30-25 with 20 seconds left in the half.
"She’s our burst of energy off the bench and she got our momentum going," said HPU forward Skye Savini, who made the all-tournament team. "After she got hurt, it was kind of hard to pick it back up."
Ladrido injured her left knee early in the second half. She played only seven minutes of that half, missed both of her shots and both of her free throws, and committed her only turnover.
"All of a sudden, my knee just popped," said Ladrido, who walked to the postgame press conference on crutches with an ice pack taped to her left knee. "The trainer would just kind of pop it back in, but it kept on going in and out."
Ladrido underwent reconstructive surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in 2008.
"My knee has been fine ever since then," she said. "In this game, it just gave out on me. We’re not sure what’s going on with my knee, right now."
As Ladrido’s knee went, so went the Sea Warriors’ hopes.
"Bing is our emotional leader, our team captain," Takatsuka said, using Ladrido’s nickname. "She’s our spark plug. Everyone feeds off of her energy. When she went down, we lose a lot of energy. We lose a lot of confidence. Losing Bing was probably the turning point in the game."
HPU owned a 35-29 lead with 1:15 gone in the second half, but scored just three points in the next eight minutes, and Academy of Art built a 46-38 lead with 10:33 to play. Susannah Walmsley’s driving lay-in narrowed the deficit to 46-40 with 10:09 left. But that would be HPU’s last basket.
"We just couldn’t get it together," Takatsuka said. "They saw us reeling a little bit and they just kept pushing at us. We couldn’t push back."
Academy of Art ruled the second half. The Urban Knights outscored HPU in the lane 24-4, forced 13 turnovers that resulted in 21 points, caused the Sea Warriors to miss 16 of 20 shots and outrebounded them 29-16.
Dixie St. 92, Chaminade 80
The Silverswords (19-10) held a 63-57 lead with 11:12 to play in the men’s final, but made only one basket in the next seven minutes, and top-seeded Dixie State (22-6) built a 79-71 lead with 4:20 left.
Waly Coulibaly’s 3-pointer narrowed Chaminade’s deficit to 83-79 with 2:19 left. But the Swords failed to score off Coulibaly’s steals on their next two possessions.
Bennie Murray scored 27 points and De’Andre Haskins had 14 points and seven rebounds for third-seeded Chaminade. Both made the all-tournament team, as did BYUH’s Okesene Ale. Steven Larson led the Red Storm with 22 points as the tournament’s MVP. McKay Massey added 21 points and Zach Robbins had 14 points and 11 rebounds.
