Wahine cling to victory and first-place tie

For first-place teams, even wins can be frustrating.

The Hawaii women’s basketball team won its third straight game and held onto a share of first in the Big West Conference with a 54-51 victory at UC Santa Barbara on Thursday night.

Much like UCSB’s 51-50 win in Honolulu last month, this rematch at the Thunderdome was a grind of a game that went down to the final possession. But UH got the stop it needed when Melissa Zornig’s contested 3-pointer was off-line coming out of a timeout with 4.6 seconds left.

UH (14-11, 10-4 BWC) trailed by two at halftime but seized the lead at the 15-minute mark behind five straight points from Kamilah Martin. The Rainbow Wahine fought off the slow-paced Gauchos from there and improved to 5-3 on the road in Big West play, while avenging their only home loss to a conference foe.

"Probably three or four games ago, if we had the same energy and lack of offensive execution, we would not have been able to play defense the way we did," UH coach Laura Beeman said in a postgame phone interview. "I think we lose this ballgame. The positive is playing as bad as we did, with the frustration that we had, we were able to win this game. I think that shows growth."

UH shot 4-for-6 on 3s in gaining some separation from UCSB (11-14, 7-6) in the standings. The Rainbow Wahine will look to do the same at third-place Cal Poly (15-9, 9-4) in San Luis Obispo on Saturday.

Co-leader Pacific won easily over Cal State Fullerton, keeping the Wahine and Tigers tied with four regular-season games remaining to determine the regular-season champion.

Martin scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the Wahine. Junior Shawna Kuehu and freshman Destiny King added 23 combined points off the bench. The reserves were particularly big down the stretch.

"It’s good that we won, we needed it, but we’re not satisfied with it," Kuehu said. "It was an ugly win. It wasn’t a Hawaii win. We had talked about that in the locker room. … We’re going to have to do (our style), and we’re going to have to refocus."

UCSB tied it up at 45, but freshman Marissa Wimbley gave UH the lead back with two free throws and the Wahine led the rest of the way.

UH had the ball from out of bounds up two with 39 seconds left and turned it over on the inbounds pass, but Nicole Nesbit gave it right back with 8.2 seconds to play.

The Gauchos took a foul and King made one of two, setting up Zornig’s errant 3.

UCSB’s top player, forward Sweets Underwood, scored 16 points and grabbed five rebounds.