Long Beach State falls to Hawaii in semifinal
The odds were good that somebody would eventually heat up on Friday evening.
It turned out to be the Hawaii women's basketball team that couldn't seem to miss in the third quarter, allowing the thirdseeded Rainbow Wahine to surge ahead of secondseeded Long Beach State and eventually hold on for a 67-62 win in a Big West Tournament semifinal at the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada.
Hawaii (17-14) will face fifth-seeded UC Santa Barbara (21-11) in the championship game today at 3 p.m. The Gauchos beat ninth-seeded Cal State Bakersfield, 75-66, in an earlier semifinal.
“They weren't afraid of the moment. They hit some big shots and made some big plays,” Long Beach coach Jeff Cammon said of Hawaii, which was 5 for 8 from 3-point range in the third quarter. “We did, but we just didn't make enough of them.”
LBSU (23-9) beat Hawaii in both meetings during its 15-game winning streak in conference play, including its first win in Oahu since the 1994-95 season, but Long Beach couldn't take advantage of a slow start by the Rainbow Wahine on Friday.
Long Beach also didn't get the type of production it was used to receiving from senior guard Tori Harris, the Big West Player of the Year who finished with six points on 2-for-14 shooting.
Kianna Hamilton-Fisher led Long Beach with 17 points, Ma'Qhi Berry scored 13 and Courtney Murphy finished with 12 points, going 4 for 6 from 3-point range while the rest of her team went 3 for 20.
“I thought we settled,” Cammon said. “I thought (Hawaii) worked for quality shots, versus us settling for 3-pointers, and we really stopped attacking the basket, so I thought their physicality bothered us.”
Long Beach trailed by four points to start the fourth quarter, which didn't seem like a tall feat to overcome after LBSU rallied from a nine-point deficit at the start of the fourth to win its quarterfinal against UC Riverside on Wednesday.
Hawaii scored the first five points of the fourth to move ahead by double figures, however.
Patricia Chung, who scored seven second-half points off the bench to help keep Long Beach close, scored on a drive to make it a six-point game with 4:05 left, and Murphy sank a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 57-54 with 1:38 remaining.
Murphy made two more 3-pointers in the final minute, but Hawaii's Lily Wahinekapu countered by going 6 for 6 from the free-throw line during that stretch.
Wahinekapu, the Big West Freshman of the Year at Cal State Fullerton last season, finished with 18 points to lead the Rainbow Wahine.
“We did a great job of fighting our way back and made it a one-possession game, it just didn't roll our way,” Cammon said. “We couldn't make that play that we've been able to make in the past.”
The first half ended in a 21-all tie as both teams struggled with their shooting accuracy. LBSU shot 31% from the floor and the Rainbow Wahine shot 30%. Hawaii missed its first six shots and Long Beach started 1 for 6 from the floor.
Berry combined for five points on back-to-back trips down the court to give Long Beach a 9-5 lead.
The Rainbow Wahine scored five straight points to take their first lead at 10-9, but LBSU moved back ahead on a jumper by Berry, who scored seven points in the opening quarter.
Long Beach helped itself by forcing six turnovers in the first quarter and 18 overall.
Hawaii turned the ball over four more times in the second quarter but still managed to move ahead 21-18 before Murphy sank a 3-pointer from the baseline to tie the score with 1:52 left in the half and neither team scored the rest of the way.
Berry helped pick up the slack for Harris by scoring nine first-half points, better than her 8.7 per-game average.
“Momentum is a strange thing,” Cammon said. “I don't think they hit a lot of shots, I just think they hit timely shots. It seemed like they hit 15 3s, but they hit seven, we hit seven.”