By BART WRIGHT
By BART WRIGHT
Hawaii Tribune-Herald
They got to the place where they could feel effort and understanding paying off in on-the-court accomplishments, now the University of Hawaii at Hilo women’s basketball team gets to find out if it can make the feeling last.
Two days after a come-from-behind 68-63 Pacific West Conference victory over Dixie State, the Vulcans (4-4 in PWC, 4-9 overall), play host to defending champion Hawaii Pacific (6-3, 9-7) Saturday at 1 pm with the men’s game to follow.
“They’re really good,” UH Hilo coach David Kaneshiro said of the Sharks. “They’ve been good for a while, but to win our conference like they did (with an 18-2 record), a year ago and to be playing as tough as they have been, it’s really going to be a big challenge for us.”
UH Hilo is coming off its second consecutive conference win at home and enters the game in seventh place in the 14-team conference, one notch above where it finished a year ago, so a win against Hawaii Pacific would deservedly be considered the biggest achievement of the 2015-16 season.
The Sharks are led by Breanna Mackenzie, the conference’s fifth-leading scorer, averaging 17.1 points per game. She’s made 103 of 227 3-point shots, a 45.5 percentage. Hawaii Pacific is coming off back-to-back losses to, arguably, the top two teams in the PWC, Academy of Art (82-72, Monday), and Cal Baptist (74-65, Thursday).
“They kind of went down to the wire in those games,” Kaneshiro said. “No doubt, for us, it will take a complete game, in all phases.”
The Vulcans’ men’s team will try to regroup after being overpowered in the second half Thursday night by a bigger, more physical Dixie State team, 97-79. A couple leftover stats from that game will have to change if UH Hilo hopes to get a win against Hawaii Pacific.
Dixie State held offensive (9-6) and defensive (24-14) rebounding advantages, but that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Red Storm had 21 second-chance points to 10 for the Vulcans and 17 UH Hilo turnovers were converted into 20 points.
“We were tired, I think we saw that,” coach GE Coleman said of his injury-depleted squad, “but we just can’t play when have that many turnovers and also let them take it down the lane on us.”
Hawaii Pacific is second in the conference in scoring defense, having allowed 71.4 points per game, just a notch ahead of Dixie State, allowing 71.7.
The Vulcans will close out their five-game home stand Monday against conference leader Cal Baptist.