Breaks have been hard to come by lately for the UW women’s basketball team.

After keeping close to UCLA for the majority of 40 minutes Saturday – including a brief 56-53 lead – the Huskies (5-12, 1-6 Pac-10) fell 74-66 to UCLA (14-4, 5-2 Pac-10).

The Dawgs have now lost six straight games.

Scoring is no longer a problem for Washington now that guard Kristi Kingma is near full strength.

The talented freshman made six 3-pointers — one shy of the UW single-game record — and rang up 25 points on the Bruins.

“We’re going in the right direction,” UW head coach Tia Jackson said.

It was something Jackson repeated to the media during the losing streak and this time she may be right.

“This whole weekend, I felt pretty confident with my shot, even though I hadn’t been practicing,” Kingma said in a radio interview.

Unfortunately for Washington, the only other Husky to score in double figures was guard Sami Whitcomb, with 10 points. Whitcomb fouled out with 4:45 remaining in the game after playing much of the second half in foul trouble.

Consequently, the Huskies looked for every opportunity to give Kingma an open look, even when the UCLA defense keyed in on her.

“We were [even] using our post players as decoys,” Jackson said.

The UW posts have been struggling lately, and despite winning the battle of the boards against USC Thursday night, were simply outmatched in the paint, getting out-rebounded by the Bruins 48-32.

The Huskies’ top performers in the front court were Laura McLellan, finishing the game with seven points and four rebounds, and Mackenzie Argens, who added six points and five rebounds.

Perhaps the biggest indictment to the Husky forwards was that point guard Christina Rozier led the team with eight rebounds.

“That’s something I think we’re lacking right now, that desire to get the ball,” Kingma said. “You can really learn from [UCLA]…even their girls that aren’t big are always going for the board.”

But Kingma agreed that, on the whole, the Huskies played their first complete game in weeks, closing out the first half trailing 33-30 and fighting to take the lead several times in the second half.

“We feel like we have all the momentum in the world coming into the next game,” Kingma said.

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.