A late meltdown cost the Hawaii women’s basketball team a chance at victory on Thursday.

The Rainbow Wahine gave up a 9-0 run in the final three minutes and lost 83-74 to Cal State Fullerton at Titan Gym.

Some aspects of the game went decisively the way of UH (4-8, 0-1 Big West). It shot a season-high 60 percent from the field and outrebounded the Titans 37-18.

But Fullerton (5-8, 1-0) collected 15 steals among UH’s 24 turnovers, while coughing up the ball only nine times itself. Ball pressure, 3-pointers and free-throw shooting ultimately were the difference.

The Titans — who were projected to finish last in the league to UH’s sixth — went 10-for-20 on 3s and 21-for-27 (78 percent) at the stripe. Conversely, UH was just 2-for-5 from deep and 16-for-25 (64 percent) at the line.

"We picked a really, really bad night not to get back in transition. To not contain at all," UH coach Laura Beeman said in a phone interview. "They were shooting too well to fall back into a zone."

UH continues Big West road play at UC Riverside (7-5, 0-1) on Saturday.

Junior wing Shawna Kuehu hit a free throw to tie the game at 69 with 2:44 to play. But UH turned the ball over three times and missed two free throws as Cal State Fullerton went up 78-69 with 47 seconds left. The Wahine went to fouling and were unable to muster a rally.

"They just started attacking us … putting their head down and going to the basket," Beeman said. "Spreading us out so we had a hard time rotating. They blew by our perimeter players so quickly it didn’t give our post players a chance to rotate over."

Junior forward Kamilah Martin led the Wahine with 23 points and eight rebounds.

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