Hawaii handles UC Irvine in Big West road opener

Hawaii’s height and depth powered the Rainbow Wahine basketball team to an 83-65 road rout of UC Irvine on Thursday.

UH forward Megan Huff led a balanced scoring performance with 15 points and nine rebounds, guards Ashleigh Karaitiana and Marissa Wimbley added 11 points each and the Rainbow Wahine opened their Big West road trip with the victory at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif.

The Wahine bench contributed 49 points to UH’s highest total of the season and the Wahine outrebounded UCI 52-27 while improving to 10-8 overall and 3-2 in Big West play.

“We’re really just trying to work on our depth and our continuity, a little bit of chemistry with some different lineups,” UH coach Laura Beeman said in a phone interview. “We can’t just rely on six or seven deep, we have to try to get down that bench a little bit and I though we had some people that stepped up and were able to do that.”

Wimbley, a senior, went 3-for-6 from 3-point range off the bench to set a season high. Junior center Brianna Kennedy had her most productive night of the season with eight points and five rebounds. Karaitiana also hit three 3-pointers and finished with five assists.

UH’s advantage on the boards included 19 offensive rebounds leading to an 18-3 margin in second-chance points. UH also went 17-for-22 from the free-throw line, while UCI went 4-for-8.

Shereen Sutherland led UC Irvine (3-16, 0-5) with 15 points in the Anteaters’ 11th straight loss. UH and UCI meet again on Jan. 30 at the Stan Sheriff Center.

After UC Irvine crept out to a 9-5 lead, UH broke away with a 24-4 run, with Wimbley hitting a jumper and draining her first 3-pointer on consecutive possessions in the middle of the outburst.

UH and UCI traded baskets for much of the second quarter and the Wahine took a 45-33 lead into halftime.

UCI closed to within eight in the third quarter, but UH responded with a 17-2 run to reclaim control.

After point guard Olivia Crawford found King for an open jumper, she came up with a steal and UCI’s Raelyn Cheung-Sutton was called for an intentional foul. Crawford made both free throws, King hit another jumper and Kennedy scored in the post to extend UH’s lead to 55-39.

Kennedy later fed Huff for a layup while drawing a foul and the free throw gave UH its largest lead of the game at 64-41.

“Once we went on that (first-quarter) run we got in a groove offensively and we were able to put a lot of points up on the board,” Beeman said. “Defensively, we didn’t do as good of a job and I thought we should have. Part of it is lineups and part of it is we’re just not working as hard as we need to. But we want to get depth and we want to get some continuity.”

UH concludes its road trip Saturday at CSUN (2-16, 0-4), nine days after UH’s 77-50 home win over the Matadors. CSUN led late at Cal Poly on Thursday, but a last-second 3-pointer sent the game into overtime and Cal Poly hung on to deny the Matadors their first conference win of the season.

“They’re a team that’s going to continue to get better, they’re going to upset some people in our conference,” Beeman said of the Matadors. “We definitely have to focus and lock in. It’ll be a very different game than what we saw tonight. We have to get it together defensively between now and then.”

BIG WEST WOMEN

Wednesday

Long Beach State 62, Cal State Fullerton 57

Thursday

Hawaii 83, UC Irvine 65

Cal Poly 66, CSUN 62 (OT)

UC Santa Barbara 66, UC Davis 59

Saturday

Hawaii at CSUN, 2 p.m. HST

UC Davis at Cal Poly, 2 p.m.

UC Irvine at Cal State Fullerton, 4 p.m.

UC Santa Barbara at UC Riverside, 5 p.m.

Hawaii 83, UC Irvine 65

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

Halftime — Hawaii 45, UC Irvine 33

3-point goals — Hawaii 6-19 (Karaitiana 3-6, Wimbley 3-6, Morris 0-1, King 0-1, Toeina 0-1, Leah Salanoa 0-1, Harris 0-3). UC Irvine 5-14 (Sutherland 1-2, Ritter 1-2, Chavez 1-2, Knox 1-2, Jackson 1-3, Cheung-Sutton 0-1, Glassow 0-1, Hicks 0-1). Steals — Hawaii 4 (Adolpho, Crawford, Wimbley, Harris). UC Irvine 9 (Piper 2, Ritter 2, Cheung-Sutton 2, Sutherland, Chavez, Hicks). Blocked shots — Hawaii 3 (Karaitiana, Kennedy, Toeaina). UC Irvine 4 (Fajemisin 2, Cheung-Sutton, Chavez). Turnovers — Hawaii 18 (Karaitiana 3, Crawford 2, King 2, Kennedy 2, Harris 2, Toeaina 2, Leah Salanoa 2, Morris, Wimbley, Huff). UC Irvine 14 (Cheung-Sutton 4, Sutherland 3, Fajemisin 2, Ritter 2, Jackson, Chavez, Hicks). Technical fouls — Hawaii 1 (King). UC Irvine none. Officials —Michael Price, Kent Johnson, Renee Robinson. A—175.