IRVINE, Calif. — Entering the PacWest Championships this week, the sixth-seeded Dominican University of California women's basketball team is set for Thursday's quarterfinal showdown against No. 3 Hawai'i Pacific.
 
March of the Penguins
The turn of the calendar into March marks the end of winter, the beginning of daylight savings time, and the tradition of madness. The Dominican University of California women's basketball team is making a habit of playing into March. The Penguins have won 34 games over the last two years — one more than the combined total from Dominican's first five years in Division II before current coach Tim LaKose took over.
 
The Road to Irvine
On Jan. 28, Dominican lost a double-overtime heartbreaker at Azusa Pacific to drop their PacWest record to 7-7. The Penguins have since won 5-of-6 games, including their last three in a row, to capture the final spot in the PacWest Championships on the last day of the regular season. The reward for No. 6 Dominican (16-11/12-8 PacWest) is a date with No. 3 Hawai'i Pacific (20-5/17-3 PacWest). Tipping off on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. in Irvine, the duel between the Sharks and Penguins is a rematch from last year's tournament, which saw Dominican beat the defending champions, 66-62, in a 4/5 matchup. The Sharks qualified for their fifth-straight PacWest Championship and fly into Irvine on a two-game winning streak, having won 7-of-8 over the last month. HPU's five-hour flight from Honolulu to southern California spans 2,583 miles, while Dominican's one-hour flight from the Bay Area is just 379 miles.
 
Key Players
Dominican is led by All-PacWest First Team forward Sandra Ikeora — the conference's leading scorer (22.2 ppg). The freshly-minted PacWest Defender of the Year from Valencia, Calif. will need Dominican's strong supporting cast of hard-driving sophomore Natalie Diaz and sharpshooting senior Carly Holboke to combat the suffocating Shark defense. Hawai'i Pacific is paced by All-PacWest First Team guard Breanna Mackenzie (12.5 ppg) from Melbourne, Australia and All-PacWest Third Team reserve guard VeAnne Navarro (10.3 ppg) from Modesto, Calif.  
 
Feeding Frenzy
Thursday's matchup pits the conference's second-best scoring offense (Dominican) against the second-best scoring defense (Hawai'i Pacific). The Sharks and Penguins are the top-two rebounding teams in the conference, with Dominican relying on Ikeora's nation-leading 12.9 boards per game and Hawai'i Pacific sporting seven players averaging over 4.0 rebounds a game. The Sharks have won 20 games for the second time in three years thanks to a balanced attack. HPU has 10 players averaging five-plus points and 15-plus minutes per game. 10 different players have led them in scoring over their 25-game schedule with this Shark squad featuring 13 upperclassmen compared to Dominican's six.
 
Year of the Shark
In two previous meetings this year, Hawai'i Pacific has held junior Sandra Ikeora to two of her three lowest scoring performances on the year, limiting her to half her season average at 10.0 points per game on 27-percent shooting. In the Dec. 15 battle in Honolulu, the Sharks outscored the Penguins by 12 in both the second and third quarters to win by 34 after a hotly-contested first quarter. In the Jan. 14 rematch in San Rafael, Dominican held HPU to 29-percent shooting, but fell behind by double-digits in the first quarter and could never catch up. Last year's matchups followed a similar pattern with Dominican failing to beat Hawai'i Pacific in the regular season before ending their season in Irvine.
 
Tall Task Ahead
Should the Penguins upset the Sharks for the second-straight year, they would face No. 2 Point Loma (23-4/17-3 PacWest) — the conference's best defense, allowing a stingy 57.9 points per game to opponents. Dominican lost the only meeting with the Sea Lions 75-54 in San Rafael on Jan. 5. In Point Loma's regular season finale at Cal Baptist (29-2/20-0 PacWest) Saturday, the Sea Lion offense put up the most points scored against CBU all year in their 94-85 loss to the Lancers.
 
Follow the Madness
For those who can't make it to Irvine, live stats and video can be found at dominicanathletics.com/live on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. Live updates will also be provided at twitter.com/dominican_wbb. For more information, visit PacWest Tournament Central.