A feel-bad week for the Hawaii women’s basketball team ended on a particularly sour note.
UH lost its leading scorer and rebounder Makenna Woodfolk to an announced pregnancy on Tuesday. UH lost a tight one at home to UC Irvine on Thursday. And on Saturday, UH lost big.
First-place UC Davis shot down the Rainbow Wahine, 72-46, by hitting 13 3-pointers at the Aggies’ Pavilion. Fifth-place UH (11-15, 7-6) — which was in second place at the start of the week — has an uphill road to a top-four seeding and a Big West tournament bye with three regular-season games remaining.
“Guys have to play good to feel good, girls have to feel good to play good. And this has been a tough week for this team to feel good,” coach Laura Beeman said in a postgame phone interview. “We will get over that. We will regroup. We need time to process, a little bit. But the biggest thing I can say is we will feel good by Saturday (for senior night) and we will regroup by Saturday.”
The well-rested Aggies (19-6, 11-1), who hadn’t played in nine days, took advantage of a team that was forced to travel on a quick turnaround and won their 10th straight since the Wahine upset them 65-60 in Honolulu on Jan. 12. UH held a walk-through at home Friday then flew to Sacramento that night. Beeman thought her team handled the travel “like rock stars.”
But the hosts jumped out quickly in the afternoon game, leading 20-7 after a quarter.
“The travel wasn’t why we didn’t show up today,” Beeman said, attributing it to jumbled chemistry, some lack of focus and blown defensive schemes. “And I don’t think … we didn’t show up across the board.”
The Wahine drew within eight points on two instances in the third quarter on 3-point shots by Lahni Salanoa. But the Aggies’ shooters sprung loose after that and they outscored UH 21-10 in the fourth.
UCD shot 13-for-21 (61.9 percent) on 3-pointers and scored 20 points off of 20 UH turnovers. The defending Big West champions got 20 points from forward Morgan Bertsch and a combined 28 points from sisters Karley and Kourtney Eaton, who combined to shoot 9-for-10 on 3s.
The Wahine were led by point guard Tia Kanoa and post Myrrah Joseph, who scored nine apiece.
“We absolutely have to regroup,” Beeman said. “We have three big games left, winnable games for us. We have to be able to make adjustments quicker than what we did today. We’re still working on some chemistry, because we’re missing a piece to the puzzle. But we’re going to work that chemistry this week and get back to the practice floor.”