With her starters struggling, Hawaii coach Laura Beeman scanned down the row of faces on the Rainbow Wahine sideline for salvation.

She found it in Pua Kailiawa.

The senior center from the Big Island contributed a season-high nine points in 11 minutes off the bench as the Rainbow Wahine overcame a slow start to defeat UC Davis 64-50 on Thursday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Kailiawa, a sparingly used player on some nights, came up with big moments in both halves to help UH (9-7, 3-1 Big West) win its third straight conference game and assume sole possession of second place. When the Aggies took the early lead, she dropped off a pretty no-look bounce pass behind her body to Diane Moore, resulting in a layup to tie the score at 19 and get the crowd of 555 going. UH would take a three-point lead into halftime.

"I look back and I see (Moore), so I’m like, ‘Well, I’m just going to give it to her, ’cause she’s holding a seal,’ " Kailiawa said. "And she was much closer than I was, and had a high-percentage shot. So I just dropped it down and she shot it, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that actually worked!’ "

Then, with five minutes to go in the game, Kailiawa hit a timely corner 3-pointer once UC Davis (8-10, 3-2) had trimmed UH’s 19-point lead to 11.

She wasn’t the only one to rise and shine from the pine.

Backup point guard Marissa Wimbley hit a much-needed 3-pointer when UH was down early, and top reserve Ashleigh Karaitiana supplied nine points and five rebounds as UH’s bench outscored UC Davis’ 25-6.

"We know that the bench can maintain," Beeman said. "What we need to do is see them do more than maintain, and they were able to do that. They did not allow Davis to score, and they were able to put the ball in the basket.

"Sometimes you just need a little wrinkle, and they brought that with great excitement and really carried us into halftime with great momentum."

Senior forward Kamilah Jackson supplied her usual heavy lifting from there, as she scored 14 of her game-high 18 points in the second half to go with nine boards.

Jackson opened the period with 3-for-3 shooting after going 1-for-8 before halftime.

UH’s execution was markedly better coming out of the break, as the second half opened with a Jackson layup from Shawna Kuehu just 10 seconds in on a drawn-up play.

"Just seeing people cut and fill in, we know anybody can do that on this team," Jackson said. "Just cutting off of each other, and everybody was on a string tonight. It really worked tonight."

Davis, a team that went on the road to face national powers Stanford and UConn, arrived with a three-game Big West winning streak. That came to an end as the visitors were held to their lowest point total in five league games; they shot 33.3 percent in the second half to UH’s 50 percent.

UH started 1-for-10 from the field, but the Aggies didn’t fare much better out of the gate.

The Wahine opened up shooting 4-for-23 but trailed by only four points. Kuehu banked in a step-back shot to beat the halftime buzzer for a 25-22 lead at the break.

UH continues Big West Conference play at home on Saturday against UC Irvine (9-9, 2-2) at 5 p.m.

Key — fg-a: field goals made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; rb: rebounds; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points; a: assists; to: turnovers; min: minutes played.

Halftime — Hawaii 25, UC Davis 22

3-point goals — UC Davis 4-14 (McGuire 2-3, Fipps 1-4, Harris 1-4, Marfone 0-1, Greubel 0-1, Johnson 0-1). Hawaii 3-10 (Kailiawa 1-1, Wimbley 1-2, Karaitiana 1-2, Jackson 0-1, Mason 0-1, Moore 0-1, King 0-2). Steals — UC Davis 6 (Fipps 2, Marfone, Greubel, Harris, McGuire). Hawaii 7 (Haydel, Jackson, Kuehu, Mason, King, Wimbley, Moore). Blocked shots — UC Davis 1 (Marfone). Hawaii 3 (Jackson, Kuehu, Kailiawa). Officials — Erick Thome, Shelley Nakasone, Daniel Coda). A — 555.