The final buzzer rang and Washington’s season came to an end.

The UW women’s basketball team received a 61-41 thumping at the hands of California yesterday in the second round of the Pac-10 Tournament to officially shut the book on what many will consider one of the most disappointing seasons in recent memory.

Washington (8-22, 4-16 Pac-10) was able to defeat Oregon in the first round two days ago but fatigue from playing games in consecutive days meant that the Huskies couldn’t accomplish the same feat against NCAA Tournament-bound California (25-5, 16-3 Pac-10).

“We were definitely a little dead on our legs, couldn’t really get running and push enough to get rebounds,” UW senior Heidi McNeill said on radio station 1150 KKNW AM.

The Bears started the game by taking a 4-0 lead and never looked back, heading into the first half leading 31-17.

“Cal is a tremendous team and I think that they have the potential to go very far this year,” UW assistant coach Loree Payne said.

Payne said the Huskies tried passing the ball around more and getting the ball inside to wear down the Cal defense.

The Huskies also wanted to get Devanei Hampton and Ashley Walker, Cal’s talented post players, into foul trouble but the Dawgs couldn’t get into an offensive rhythm to execute their plans.

“Both of them are just so talented,” Payne said of Hampton and Walker. “They’re both physical; they’re both very aggressive and they can both score inside and out.”

Walker finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds while Hampton added nine points and four rebounds.

In contrast to Cal, the UW’s two top scorers, Sami Whitcomb and Kristi Kingma, struggled mightily.

“I think they keyed in on Sami and Kristi a little bit so we were having a hard time getting them into the flow of the game,” McNeill said.

Kingma finished with four points while Whitcomb, the UW’s leading scorer this season, finished with none.

The game was the last for McNeill and fellow senior Michelle Augustavo.

“It hasn’t quite sunk it yet, because I’m still wearing my jersey and still ready to go,” McNeill said. “I think next week or the week after when normally I’m ready to do spring workout…with the team and play basketball, I’m going to be sitting at home and wondering what I’m going to do.”

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.