Jan. 21, 2010

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RUSTON - Whitney Jones scored 18 points and Shanavia Dowdell and Adrienne Johnson each recorded double doubles to lead Louisiana Tech to a 75-62 win over Hawaii Thursday night but the frustration was written all over the face of head coach Teresa Weatherspoon following the game.

For the second straight game and third time in four league games, Weatherspoon witnessed her team build a big lead only to allow an opponent to make a game of it down the stretch.

This time the second year head coach saw her team build a 23-point lead with four minutes to play in the first half before Hawaii fought all the way back to cut it to 10 with six minutes remaining. The Lady Techsters held on for the win though.

"It's very frustrating to watch us allow teams back into games," Weatherspoon said. "I'm not sure when we are going to learn to have that killer instinct; to put teams away when we have a chance. We haven't done it recently and we didn't do it tonight."

Hawaii (8-11, 2-4 WAC) jumped out to a quick 9-4 advantage after Tech committed turnovers on its first three possessions of the game as Rebecca Dew's jumper with 15:55 to play in the first half gave the Rainbow Wahine the five-point advantage.

However, a Dowdell layup 13 seconds later started a 29-3 run over the next 11-plus minutes as the Lady Techsters took a 35-12 advantage. During the outburst, Hawaii hit only 1-of-16 shots while committing nine turnovers.

The Rainbow Wahine used a mini-run of 14-9 to end the half to grab a little momentum heading into the locker room trailing 44-26.

"This game has so much to do with momentum," Weatherspoon said. "You can't let teams gain confidence when you have them down. We did that right before the half and starting the second half."

Hawaii opened the second half, holding Tech without a point for almost four minutes as the Rainbow Wahine cut the advantage to 13 on six different occasions in the first 10 minutes of the final stanza.

Tech struggled shooting the basketball in the final 20 minutes, hitting only 9-of-27 shots while Hawaii hit 11 of its first 20 field goals.

"We just didn't get the shots we needed," Weatherspoon said. "We didn't see through the defense. We weren't patient at times. We got the win but we have a lot to work on in the next few days. We are going to play a very very good Fresno State team (Saturday night) and we can't make the same mistakes we made tonight."

Hawaii finally cut the Tech lead to 10 at 65-55 with 6:18 to play on a jumper by Dew before the Lady Techsters scored 10 straight points to put the game out of reach.

Johnson scored 16 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, recorded four assists and four steals while Dowdell added 14 points and 16 rebounds.

Allie Patterson led Hawaii with 18 points while Dita Liepkalne added 15 points.

Tech travels to face Fresno State Saturday at 7 p.m. CST.