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JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
UC Santa Barbara guard Onome Jemerigbe wrestled down a loose ball in front Hawaii guard Briana Harris.
The Hawaii women’s basketball team matched its season-worst losing streak tonight as UC Santa Barbara dealt the Rainbow Wahine their fourth straight loss, 67-52 tonight at the Stan Sheriff Center.
It was the first time the Wahine (8-15, 4-7 Big West) dropped consecutive conference home games since rejoining the Big West in 2012.
Center Drew Edelman led the Gauchos (12-12, 7-4) with 22 points on 8-for-12 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds.
UH was led by Sarah Toeaina, who scored 19 points on 8-for-15 shooting. No other Wahine player scored in double figures as they shot 40 percent to UCSB’s 49.0.
UCSB led 36-21 at halftime after UH went the last 7:50 of the second quarter without a field goal.
Lahni Salanoa made a putback to slice the deficit to eight midway through the third as UCSB missed nine of its first 10 shots of the half. Olivia Crawford drove the lane to cap the 8-0 run and cut it to 39-33.
Toeaina connected on a baseline jumper to make it a four-point game, but the Gauchos got consecutive and-1 opportunities to extend it back to nine, 46-37. The margin was 10 going into the fourth quarter.
The Gauchos made seven of their first nine shots of the final period to grow the lead to its largest at 17.
I guess we can expect this from here on out from this team. They couldn’t make their free throws. Number 1 from UCSB was small but fast and the Wahine couldn’t handle Edelman.
I keep thinking that the Wahine are a young team with more Freshman and Soph. but i don’t see them getting better. Maybe Coach should have try and gotten some Jr. college transfers with some playing time under their belt.