Iaq Pubs

Seattle police are investigating a drive-by pellet-gun shooting in the Rainier Beach neighborhood involving a woman and her two small children.

No one was injured in the shooting, which happened early Monday evening, said Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel.

The woman and her two children were walking a dog near Rainier Avenue South and South Henderson Street when the woman heard a pop and thought she felt a pellet hit her jacket, Kappel said. The pellet didn’t penetrate her jacket, Kappel said.

The shooting seemed to come from a dark-colored SUV, and police in the area were trying to locate the vehicle, Kappel said.

“The big thing is nobody’s injured,” Kappel said.

It was not immediately clear whether the shooting might be connected to a string of similar pellet-gun shootings in West Seattle earlier this month when seven people in two weeks were shot at with pellets.

Five had to receive medical treatment for their injuries, including one man who was shot while riding his bike. The pellet penetrated his lung and he had to be hospitalized.

Brian Alexander: 206-464-2026 or balexander@seattletimes.com

Issaquah

A 44-year-old Seattle man died when his motorcycle collided with a dump truck Tuesday morning, Issaquah police reported.

The identity of the victim was not made public, pending notification of next of kin, Cmdr. Stan Conrad said.

The accident took place about 7:40 a.m. at East Lake Sammamish Parkway and 229th Avenue Southeast, north of Interstate 90.

Witnesses reported the motorcycle was traveling north on East Lake Sammamish Parkway and the dump truck was pulling into the intersection from 229th Avenue Southeast when the motorcycle struck the dump truck. The motorcyclist died at the scene, Conrad said. The truck driver was not injured.

Traffic was reduced to one lane in each direction on East Lake Sammamish Parkway, a main north-and-south route leading to the Sammamish Plateau.

Eastside

Copper-wire thefts decrease at PSE

Puget Sound Energy, which provides electrical power to much of the Eastside, says steps it has taken to reduce the theft of copper wire from its substations have paid off, cutting thefts by 28 percent since January. The new measures also led to increased arrests in nine counties, the utility announced.

PSE estimates its copper-wire losses since 2005 at $500,000. To combat theft, the company has replaced chain-link fencing around substations with extruded steel fencing - a type that cannot be easily cut - and has applied microscopic labels to copper wire to allow identification at recycling centers and by law enforcement.

Thefts of copper wire and other metals have risen dramatically in recent years, with the thefts often being committed by drug users to pay for methamphetamine use. The price of copper has risen from 80 cents a pound in 2003 to about $3.50 a pound now, with national losses estimated at $1 billion annually by the federal Department of Energy.

Issaquah

Pedestrian bridge gets $3 million

The Issaquah Regional Trail System has received more than $3 million in federal funds to construct a pedestrian bridge along Highway 900 over the Interstate 90 westbound onramp. It will connect the Cedar River-Lake Sammamish and Interstate 90/Sammamish regional trails.

Construction is expected to begin in February.

Nearly $15 million was awarded and went to 36 projects throughout the state, including restoring historic transportation facilities, treating water pollution, and landscaping.

Seattle Times Eastside Bureau

LOS ANGELES - You could see the desire in Kevin Durant’s eyes.

All month, the Sonics rookie has watched established NBA stars make key plays at key points in the game to help their teams defeat Seattle.

And each time Durant steals a little of their game and tries to duplicate the effort in his next outing, wanting along with teammates to get Seattle on a winning path.

But while Durant’s driving layin brought the Sonics to only five points down with 8.4 seconds left against Los Angeles, only Lakers guard Kobe Bryant would shine on Tuesday night. The perennial All-Star scored six of his game-high 35 points in the final four minutes, including two free throws with 12.2 seconds left, to send the Sonics to a 106-99 defeat.

Los Angeles snapped a three-game losing streak before a sellout crowd of 18,997 at Staples Center.

Seattle was left with the league’s worst record at 2-13 and continues to match the inaugural Sonics for worst start in franchise history.

The 1967-68 team was 2-14 before getting its third victory of the season.

The Sonics quickly dressed and boarded their bus, seemingly not wanting to answer the same repetitive questions of why they can’t execute past the opening half.

Durant continued to keep his comments positive, but even those responses are getting shorter and shorter.

“He still has a young man’s body,” Lakers forward Lamar Odom said of the 19-year-old Durant. “Once he matures a little bit, he’ll be tough.”

Possibly as tough as Bryant, who made clutch buckets with the shot clock running down and grabbed critical rebounds.

Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo had Damien Wilkins and Jeff Green defend Bryant, but both struggled to keep up.

Still, the Sonics attempted to make a game of it in the closing minutes. A dunk by forward Chris Wilcox gave the Sonics life with a 104-99 deficit with 1:24 left. But then Wilkins’ shot was blocked by former Gonzaga star Ronny Turiaf and Wilcox and Durant missed shots.

“We played perfect, we just need to battle a little bit better than we did,” Carlesimo said. “I thought that our bench did a really good job, they gave us a good effort. We just didn’t … we needed to get some stops and needed to stop fouling. And I thought Kobe made a couple of big shots at the last second or two of the clock and Lamar had a very good game.”

Carlesimo started Delonte West, stating it was his intention to open the season giving Luke Ridnour, Earl Watson, and West a stint at the starting point-guard position. West had no assists and one technical through three quarters, getting benched for Watson in the fourth. Watson, meanwhile, was a spark, scoring seven of his 16 points in the fourth quarter and adding six assists and six rebounds to his total.

But no matter how close the Sonics pulled, silly errors in the third quarter hurt the team. With West at the helm, the Sonics were outscored 11-4 to fall behind 79-68.

“Again, third quarter, we’ve been struggling coming out,” Sonics center Kurt Thomas said. “We have to adjust. I mean, we’re right there, tied game at halftime. We’ve just got to come out and execute better. You’ve got to give Kobe credit, every time we tried to make a run, Kobe seemed to come back and hit a big shot for them.”

Sonics forward Nick Collison left the game with a possible broken nose after being fouled by Bryant with 2:31 left in the third quarter. He was examined by a Lakers doctor and will be re-examined in Seattle.

Collison was replaced by Mouhamed Sene, a selection made by Lakers coach Phil Jackson who wanted the second-year center to shoot the free throws because Collison was unable to do so. Sene made one of the two free throws.

“We know we haven’t won as much as we want to,” said Durant, who finished with a team-high 25 points. “But we’ve got to keep getting better.”

The Sonics were nearly an hour late arriving to the arena. The team stayed in Santa Monica and the 4:30 p.m. bus didn’t pull into Staples Center until 90 minutes later. Normally the team likes to arrive about 2 ½ hours before tip-off.

Jayda Evans: 206-464-2067 or jevans@seattletimes.com

Guess it doesn’t pay to cut into traffic.

Michael Register, 46, was cited for driving under the influence, driving without a license and driving on the wrong side of the road, Jacksonville, Fla.’s WJXX-TV reported, after police pulled him over going the wrong way on U.S. 17 in Putnam County, Fla.

While driving a riding lawn mower.

Copping a plea

Auburn cornerback Jerraud Powers suffered bites on his hand when he broke up a pass in Saturday’s Iron Bowl win over Alabama and strayed too close to a police dog just outside the end zone, the Birmingham (Ala.) News reported.

K-9 handlers say they’ll have to study game films before determining the snap count.

Paper Roses Dept.

A box containing thousands of rare documents, letters and memos surrounding the so-called Black Sox scandal is up for auction, the Chicago Tribune reported, including documents from the 1921 trial against eight White Sox players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series.

Pete Rose is already claiming first dibs if they discover any Reds betting slips.

Good move, Chris

Snippet from a Q&A between Cory Wolfe of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and WWE rassler Chris Jericho, best-selling author of “A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex”:

Wolfe: “You write about ticking off NHL enforcer Dave Semenko when you shared a flight with the Oilers in the early 1990s. You called him ‘Cementhead’ in your book, but would you call him that to his face?”

Jericho: “Now I probably would if I was surrounded by other people. If it was just me and him, I’d call him Mr. Semenko.”

The shocking truth

Using stun guns is a form of torture, the U.N. Committee against Torture has declared.

But, as Taser apologists were quick to point out, it’s still a lot less painful than owning Dolphins season tickets.

Talking the talk

• Doug Segrest of the Birmingham News, on reeling Alabama - loser of four straight - looking at a possible berth in the low-rent Independence Bowl for the third time in seven seasons: “Alabama has spent more time in Shreveport than a traveling vacuum salesman.”

• Bill Lankhof of the Toronto Sun, after Saskatchewan beat prairie rival Winnipeg in Toronto on Sunday to win the CFL championship: “And so the Grey Cup parade goes west: Gentlemen, start your combines.”

• Former NBA star Charles Barkley, to the Dan Patrick radio show, on old pal Michael Jordan reportedly losing more than $150 million in his divorce settlement: “I was going to call him to borrow money, but I think I’ll hold off on that.”

• Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press, wondering about NFL players’ Thanksgiving Day activities: “Did Ricky Williams host a potluck?”

Charging foul

Touhomi Ghazoul, a former basketball player at North Dakota State College of Science, rang up $46,897 on a school calling card by making 395 unauthorized international phone calls at $9.80 a minute, the Fargo Forum reported.

The bill was even more staggering than that, investigators say, before Italian cellphone providers agreed to waive the Roman charges.

Dwight Perry: 206-464-8250 or dperry@seattletimes.com

For months, Lynnwood’s police chief and four others in the department had to go about their business even though one of their most trusted veteran officers was suspected of stealing thousands of dollars and was the subject of an FBI investigation.

“It was very difficult for those people to continue working with someone they knew was being investigated for theft,” Police Chief Steven J. Jensen said Monday.

Paul Watkins, a 24-year veteran of the department who had risen to the rank of deputy chief, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Seattle last week to one count of theft for stealing from the department’s evidence room.

Police and prosecutors allege that Watkins stole $70,000 to $120,000 over four years while he was commander of the department’s Criminal Investigative Division. He was fired last week after the city refused to accept his resignation, Jensen said Monday during a news conference at the Lynnwood Police Department, the first time he has spoken publicly about the case.

The investigation of Watkins began in the spring shortly after Jensen said he urged members of his department to be more timely about retrieving evidence and money that had been seized by police during investigations but was no longer needed for prosecution.

While looking into evidence records, a commander discovered that a package containing more than $14,000 in cash, two handguns and cocaine had been picked up from the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office by Watkins in 2001 but never returned to the Police Department.

“It struck me as very odd,” Jensen said. “Most of our commanders don’t even know where the prosecutor’s evidence room is.”

Jensen said he contacted the FBI as soon as he suspected Watkins.

FBI agents who also attended the news conference praised the chief.

“It took a lot of courage, and it was the right thing to do,” said Steven Dean, FBI assistant special agent in charge.

As commander of the department’s Criminal Investigation Division, Watkins oversaw the evidence room and the process by which seized money and property were either forfeited to the city or returned to their owners. Because he was so trusted, Watkins was able to circumvent protective policies he had helped put into place, Jensen said.

Jensen also said Watkins took home the police documents that would have allowed state and department auditors to discover the discrepancies.

Watkins faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in February.

Prosecutors said they plan to ask for a long sentence because Watkins attempted to discard shredded documents the night before his Oct. 23 arrest.

Federal agents said they are investigating whether Watkins was tipped off to the impending search of his home that night. Jensen said Watkins did know that he was slated to be interviewed by the FBI on Oct. 23.

Dean said while federal agents discovered indications that Watkins was in financial trouble, they never found a solid reason for the theft or discovered what the money was spent on.

As far as federal agents know, he said, Watkins didn’t have issues with gambling or drugs.

“We don’t know where the money he stole went,” Dean said. “And we cannot answer why an honest policeman would have stolen from his department.”

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com

WASHINGTON - Kevin Rudd, Australia’s new prime minister, combines iron discipline with a puckish sense of humor, political toughness with a reflective spiritual side, and a youthful disposition with an old pro’s skill at divining where a majority lies.

The triumph of Rudd and his Labor Party holds lessons for Democrats and other center-left parties. John Howard, the conservative incumbent swept from power after 11 years in office, had presided over record prosperity. For the first time, wrote Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian government was tossed out in unambiguously strong economic times.

Until Saturday’s vote, Labor had lost four elections in a row. One young Labor politician I spoke with during a visit to Australia this summer worried whether her party would have any future if it lost a fifth time. As it happens, Labor under Rudd won its largest share of the vote in 60 years. Howard lost his own seat in a rout that saw Labor go from 60 seats to about 86 seats (some races are still close) in the 150-member House of Representatives.

Rudd built on a strong reaction against Howard’s new workplace laws curtailing the rights of workers and unions. Labor won a swath of seats in the far urban suburbs where younger two-income families flourish but also struggle with rising mortgage rates and the work-family-community time crunch.

But it is the success of the 50-year-old Rudd in drawing a generational line across the Australian electorate that could be adopted elsewhere, particularly in countries like ours where young people are frustrated with replays of old battles. He overwhelmed the 68-year-old Howard among voters under 30, beat him among those 30 to 50 years old, and ran even or slightly behind among voters over 50.

Everything Rudd did cast the election as a choice between the past and the future, the old and the new, the tired and the fresh, all embodied in his core slogans, “New Leadership” and “Fresh Ideas.” The issues he emphasized - the need for action against global warming, an “education revolution” to make Australia “the best-educated country in the world,” and a pledge to bring broadband technology to the entire nation - reinforced his resolutely up-to-date aura.

Environmentalism mattered in this election. Howard suffered from his close alignment with the Bush administration on global warming, and Australia’s Green Party, with 7.6 percent of the vote, played a role in Labor’s victory.

Under Australia’s system, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority on the basis of first preferences, the winner is determined by redistributing ballots cast for minor parties on the basis of second preferences. Green ballots went heavily to Labor.

Rudd’s balancing act provides a model for center-left parties that also points to the tensions they confront once in power. Rudd won as a self-described “economic conservative” who would tightly manage the nation’s budget. But he also won thanks to an activated trade-union movement fighting for its life in seeking to overthrow Howard’s workplace rules.

While Rudd’s centrism wooed swing voters, new political energies were unleashed through innovative organizing efforts on the left. A Web-based group called “Get Up!” organized young progressives. The efforts paid off.

Rudd has to keep his core promises to the unions and his pledges of economic sobriety to middle-of-the-road voters - and not disappoint either.

I saw Rudd this summer as his media maestros were beginning to push the party’s leader-focused “Kevin07″ campaign. Rudd was characteristically self-deprecating and a bit abashed about the narcissism of it all. But he knew exactly what he was doing. With the opposition in tatters and his own party grateful for victory, Rudd has earned great personal authority at the end of a very personal campaign.

One other thing: Rudd is resolutely pro-American, but he will also be able to speak to China’s leaders in fluent Mandarin. You wonder if that’s about the future, too.

Rudd relied on youth, moderation and the voters’ exhaustion with the ideological categories of the past. But he also needed the passion of activists determined to end a long conservative era. Sound familiar?

E.J. Dionne’s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is postchat@aol.com

Here is a text of the Israel-Palestinian agreement to formally restart Mideast peace talks, as read to the U.S.-organized peace conference at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Tuesday:

The representatives of the government of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, represented respectively by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as chairman of the PLO executive committee and president of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference having concluded the following joint understanding:

We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.

In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements.

We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.

For this purpose, a steering committee led jointly by the head of the delegation of each party will meet continuously as agreed.

The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party.

The first session of the steering committee will be held on 12 December, 2007.

President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a biweekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.

The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map to a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict issued by the quartet on 30 April, 2003 - this is called the road map - and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism led by the United States to follow up on the implementation of the road map.

The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map.

Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States.

Suggesting that all good things must come to an end, Washington State terminated the five-year tenure of football coach Bill Doba on Monday. Since Doba swore he wouldn’t quit, we’ll take him at his word and presume he was fired, becoming the first football coach cashiered at the school since Bert Clark in 1967.

You could conclude that college football 2007 has officially gone daft. The Cougars just fired a coach for having a winning record, while Washington, once the dreadnought of the West Coast, is apparently OK with Tyrone Willingham going 11-24 in three seasons.

Way back when the Cougars excised Clark, they did it partly because he made some unwise remarks after a thrashing at Stanford, to the effect that he wasn’t certain the Cougars could compete in the old Pac-8 Conference.

The autopsy on Doba: He was fired for being too nice.

Principally, that meant he was willing to delegate major authority to his assistant coaches. He trusted all of them, some too much.

Remember, Doba was hired by WSU at 62, after Mike Price announced in December 2002 he was leaving for Alabama. Doba hadn’t been a head coach since 1976 - when he was guiding Mishawaka High School in Indiana. While there’s no statute against a college head coach having success in his 60s, just about everybody who’s having it established himself in a head position before then.

My sense is that Doba, comfortable in an assistant’s cocoon for 14 seasons under Price, was taken aback by the breadth of a head coach’s responsibilities.

So whenever he could, he delegated. For the most part, he concerned himself with the defense and gave great leeway to the offensive coaches. This fall, he became fond of saying, “Alex Brink knows this offense better than I do.” That may have been true, which is both reassuring and alarming.

His assistants had to love him. They got a long leash, multiyear contracts and peace of mind.

In a conversation four weeks ago, Doba told me, “I want [the assistant] to come to work and be able to relax and say something during the staff meeting and not get his head kicked in. I’ve been in situations where you wonder, ‘What’s gonna go wrong today?’ I don’t want that kind of pressure.

“Some people enjoy making other people miserable - and some are very successful and winning games. That’s not me.”

Which is fine, but ultimately, the head coach has to have a vision. He needs to know every nuance of the offense just as he knows the defense. At WSU, you can’t be a caretaker; you’ve got to be a swashbuckler.

A person who would know says Doba came to rely too much on certain assistants’ opinions on matters such as which recruits could overcome academic hurdles. Time and again the past couple of years, WSU lost prospects who couldn’t get in or who flunked out.

Inevitably, that began taking a toll on the field - in depth, for one. Washington State special teams were mostly a disaster. The Cougars’ Apple Cup victory over Washington is all the more impressive when you consider UW seemed to start every possession on its 43-yard line after a WSU kickoff.

Too often the past couple of years, the Cougars, ironically, were done in by their defense, Doba’s particular expertise. If it wasn’t that, it was a maddening series of botched trick plays - from the misbegotten 2-yard onside kick to start the 2004 game against USC, to a cavalcade of failed fake punts. Those are the kinds of plays that, right or wrong, focus attention on a staff’s preparation.

To the end, Doba was a gentleman to the core. After the Cougars presented him a glittering going-away gift - Saturday’s 42-35 victory over Washington - Doba talked about what a classy rivalry it was and hugged Huskies staffers outside the WSU dressing quarters.

Just a guess, but what WSU faithful would really like now is some of the Dennis Erickson fire of 1987 (”Before I go to bed every night, I’m going to ask myself: What did I do today to beat the Huskies?”). Or that of his predecessor, Jim Walden, who last week in an Internet piece noted some tepid performances of recent, favored WSU teams against UW and said, “I’m talking about really uninspired performances. When I was coaching, that would have been a sacrilege.”

Now, WSU needs somebody to rally the troops in and out of the program, to embrace every last facet of the job, not delegate it, and to persuade boosters to surrender their billfolds in the name of WSU’s stadium renovation.

Some history, ancient though it may be: When WSU fired Clark in 1967, it hired a hard-drinking, swaggering Irishman named Jim Sweeney. He used to fling off his sports jacket in front of basketball crowds and lead a Cougars spell-out. He could sell fur coats in Fort Lauderdale.

One of his signature victories came over Oregon in 1971 in Spokane. The defining play came when WSU, in punt formation, had an upback slip the ball forward between the legs of a halfback named Bernard Jackson, who that day set a school rushing record with 261 yards.

Jackson scored on a 46-yard run on that little ploy. Oregon still hasn’t figured out who had the ball.

So today, the question: Where was Bernard Jackson when Bill Doba needed him?

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com

Royal Philips Electronics will buy Genlyte Group for $2.7 billion, the world’s largest lighting maker said Monday.

Philips agreed to pay $95.50 - a 52 percent premium over Friday’s close - in a deal supported by management.

Genlyte’s shares climbed $31.80, or 50.7 percent, to close at $94.48 Monday.

Louisville, Ky.-based Genlyte makes fixtures for lights used mostly by companies.

Philips said the acquisition would strengthen its position in energy-efficient lighting, and will allow it to surpass rival General Electric as the largest lighting company in North America.

Theo van Deursen, head of Philips’ lighting division, said Genlyte’s distribution channels were more important to Philips than its manufacturing technology.

Philips has invested heavily in developing energy-saving bulbs, but has so far been more successful in Europe than in the United States in marketing them.

Dubai International

Investment firm buys stake in Sony

Dubai International Capital, an investment company owned by the ruler of the booming Persian Gulf city-state, has acquired a stake of undisclosed size in the Japanese electronics and media company Sony.

Sony’s U.S. shares rose 1.9 percent Monday after the announcement, gaining 93 cents to $50.01.

The purchase is the latest by Middle East investors who have become more aggressive in looking for investment opportunities overseas.

Northern Rock

Virgin Group accelerates talks

Northern Rock will hold accelerated takeover discussions with a consortium led by Virgin Group, the battered mortgage lender said Monday.

Virgin, which wants to rebrand Northern Rock as part of Virgin Money business, says its consortium would repay $22.7 billion of the $50 billion the Bank of England has loaned to Northern Rock on the completion of the transaction.

The remainder of the money would be paid “in due course,” Northern Rock said in an announcement to the London Stock Exchange.

The Virgin Consortium also promised additional funding facilities to support the business.

Virgin’s consortium includes W.L. Ross & Co., Toscafund Asset Management and First Eastern Investment.

Rio Tinto

Mining firm works to reject takeover

Australian mining company Rio Tinto outlined a conceptual plan to boost annual iron-ore output to 600 million metric tons and committed $2.4 billion to develop iron-ore deposits Monday, ahead of an investor briefing in London.

Rio Tinto is laying out new justifications for rejecting a $150 billion takeover bid from rival BHP Billiton that would create a global mining behemoth.

Chief Executive Tom Albanese said the full value of the company’s assets was yet to be reflected in the market.

Compiled from The Associated Press

UW notebook |

Wilson Afoa came to Washington to be part of a Huskies defense that Rick Neuheisel once referred to as “Hawaiian punch.”

Afoa only hopes Saturday that Hawaii doesn’t hit back too hard.

A native of Waipahu, Afoa is one of four Huskies who will return to their home state Saturday when Washington takes on Hawaii at Aloha Stadium.

Hawaii (11-0) needs a win to secure its first BCS bowl berth. Afoa, who has attended many games there, knows the atmosphere will be raucous.

“Basically you are going against the state of Hawaii when you are in that stadium,” said the senior defensive tackle.

The other Huskies making a homecoming are sophomore defensive end Daniel Te’o-Nesheim of Waikoloa, walk-on safety Jay Angotti of Honolulu and true freshman Kalani Aldrich of Hilo.

It is the final college game for Afoa, who also finished his high-school career at Aloha Stadium. His Saint Louis High team played there to win a state title in 2002.

Afoa, Aldrich and Te’o-Nesheim had scholarship offers from Hawaii but elected to come to Seattle.

“I wanted to get outside the islands and experience something new,” said Afoa.

Although UW never played in the postseason during his time here, Afoa said he has no regrets.

“We have a chance to spoil their BCS bowl,” he said. “And that’s a goal for us.”

NOTES

• Coach Tyrone Willingham said again Monday that WSU’s final touchdown, a 35-yard pass from Alex Brink to a wide-open Brandon Gibson, was the result of a miscommunication.

“From coaches to players,” he said. “So if you’re looking to point a finger, coaches, that was us.”

Some of the players apparently thought a blitz was called and weren’t in position in the secondary when Gibson ran through. UW coaches and players had discussed the play during a timeout before the snap, but the proper call still didn’t get through.

• LB Mason Foster suffered a broken nose during the game, Willingham said, but should be able to play this week. The status of CB Jordan Murchison (ankle) and LB Donald Butler (knee) is uncertain.

• Hawaii coach June Jones said UW QB Jake Locker and RB Louis Rankin “might be the two best athletes we have played this year.” Of Locker, Jones said, “Everybody can talk about [Florida QB Tim] Tebow all they want, that quarterback at Washington is the real deal.”

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com