As Washington prepared to punt the ball away in the final minute of Saturday’s Apple Cup, KJR radio host and unabashed Husky fan Dave “Softy” Mahler paced up and down the sidelines, certain his team would blow it.

Some Washington State player who hasn’t done anything all game would find a way to make a big play, Mahler predicted. Cougars quarterback Kevin Lopina would make the biggest play of his career, he prognosticated.

Mahler was fired up, frantic, frustrated, and as it would turn out, 100 percent correct.

If someone were to have only watched the first 59 minutes of Saturday’s game and none of the other games in Washington’s recent history, the notion that Washington State, a team that had done almost nothing on offense all day, could suddenly get themselves into field goal range in 56 seconds with no timeouts would have seemed absurd.

But to anyone who has watched the Huskies over the past two seasons, what transpired in the Apple Cup’s final minute was all too predictable.

Lopina, who has had a forgettable season, threw the pass of his life, hitting Jared Karstetter in stride for a 48-yard completion that set up the tying field goal in Washington State’s 16-13 double overtime win. Karstetter, a little used true freshman who made a bigger name for himself in high school as a basketball player than on the gridiron, somehow got past Washington’s secondary to haul in just his fourth catch of the season.

That’s just how it goes for the Huskies these days. Washington is a team that has seemingly forgotten how to win. Two kickers had chances to extend the lead in the second half, and Ryan Perkins and Jared Ballman both missed.

The Huskies had a chance to be bold and go for it on fourth-and-three from the WSU 36 rather than punt the ball away, and Washington coach Tyrone Willingham missed his chance to put the game away. On that punt, which first bounced inside the five, Vonzell McDowell, Jr., had a chance to make a play and pin the Cougars deep in their own territory, but he seemed to lose track of where he was, stepping over the goal line while trying to down the ball.

Washington’s defense had a chance to make one last stand, preserve the win and its best performance of the season, but instead Lopina to Karstetter became the latest entry into the Apple Cup history books.

There haven’t been many chances for Washington to win this season, but when opportunity presented itself in Pullman, the Huskies and their coaches showed they simply don’t know how to finish.

“When you feel like you’ve got a game won and you just need one play and you don’t get it done, that’s tough,” Willingham said.

The same thing could have been said so many times last year — after the loss to Hawaii, after the loss to Washington State, after the loss to Arizona — and it rang true again after Saturday’s loss.

This year’s Huskies have shown, at times, they have the fight and the talent to be in games, but it looks like when the pressure is on, they don’t know how to win.

“I wouldn’t say the team has a confidence problem,” said linebacker Donald Butler. “I can’t speak for everybody. But we’ve got to find a way to get it done. And when you don’t, maybe that is a confidence-level problem, I don’t know.”

Butler tried his best to downplay it, but it certainly looks like there’s a confidence problem. Confident teams and coaches don’t let games like that get away. Confident teams win that Apple Cup.

For most of Saturday’s game, the Huskies were seemingly in control. They controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and looked like the better team. But in the end, the Huskies again did what Washington State used to be so well known for: they fell apart with the pressure on and lost a game they should have won.

Basically, the Dawgs Couged it.

“We had them,” Butler said. “We had them beat. But they found a way to get it done, and we didn’t.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog