Wahine begin road trip with a victory

The Hawaii women’s basketball team got 20 points and 11 rebounds from Kamilah Martin, then got back on track in hostile territory by wrapping up a 65-53 win at Cal State Northridge on Saturday.

UH shook off a one-point home loss to UC Santa Barbara last week and kicked off its three-game road trip in style. By moving to 6-3 in Big West play (10-10 overall), the Rainbow Wahine kept pace with Cal Poly for second place. It’s the team’s best start to league play since the 2001-02 squad went 8-2.

"We talked about needing to get a win on the first game of the road trip, how crucial that was for the psyche of the team," coach Laura Beeman said in a postgame phone interview. "For us to get it was huge."

It was also Beeman’s 400th career head coaching victory. She had 390 at Mt. San Antonio College from 1994 to 2010. She credited her former Mt. SAC assistants and players for getting her there.

"Now I’m chasing five," she said with a laugh.

The Wahine continue road play at Long Beach State this Thursday and UC Irvine on Saturday.

UH used a 15-2 run midway through the second half to bring them from down three points to up 10 on the Matadors (11-10, 5-4). The visitors held on thanks largely to stellar free-throw shooting (25-for-31, 80.6 percent), and a woeful (4-for-24,16.7 percent) 3-point shooting effort by the hosts.

"Coach stressed the whole time that their greatest weapon is also their biggest problem," Martin said. "Their defense, they spread out crazy and were moving wild. She told us to take our time, move the ball under pressure … and that’s what we did."

Martin shot 10-for-11 from the stripe as part of her seventh double-double of the season. Shawna Kuehu and Vicky Tagalicod added a combined 25 points off the bench, while Ashleigh Karaitiana scored 14.

UH improved to 3-2 on the road in Big West play.

The Wahine faced a 9-0 deficit to open the game, but chipped away for the rest of the period and took a 34-33 halftime lead on an acrobatic layup by Kuehu in the final seconds.

Senior forward Violet Alama, a 2009 Kalani High graduate, had five points and a team-high 10 rebounds in the loss. Ashlee Guay led the Matadors with 22 points.