Salanoa sisters lead surging Wahine

Thriving on the success of teammates, the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team opened its Big West Conference homestand with a 79-62 win over UC Irvine on Thursday.

After UH slogged through the first 12 minutes, sophomore twins Lahni and Leah Salanoa ignited a 20-5 run to help send the Rainbow Wahine to their third win in their last four games before a crowd of 504 at the Stan Sheriff Center.

“One of our big things is celebrating each other’s success,” Lahni Salanoa said. “So it’s really fun just seeing everybody score and everybody having fun on the court.”

Lahni Salanoa led UH with 18 points, one short of the career high she set in her previous appearance at the Sheriff Center, and tied a career best with four 3-pointers. Leah hit two 3-pointers in the second-quarter run and finished with 12 points. Guard Sarah Toeaina added 13 points and Briana Harris set a career high with six assists.

Freshman forward Makenna Woodfolk added nine points and 10 rebounds and all 10 UH players who suited up contributed to the scoring and had at least one rebound.

“Everybody was confident in her own shots, everyone was looking for each other and pushing the ball in transition,” Leah Salanoa said.

The Rainbow Wahine (7-11, 3-3 Big West) conclude their homestand on Saturday against Cal Poly (7-11, 3-3) in a rematch of UH’s 87-79 win in California last Thursday.

“Coming off a win, our intensity is already high so we just have to bring it up in practice tomorrow and everybody just has to be focused and locked in for Saturday,” Lahni Salanoa said.

UH and UC Irvine (3-17, 1-5) started the game a combined 0-for-13 from the field before UH managed to open up an eight-point lead.

UCI caught the Wahine early in the second quarter only to have the Salanoa twins account for 16 points in UH’s decisive surge.

Lahni Salanoa broke a 17-17 tie with back-to-back 3 pointers and added two free throws. Leah Salanoa drilled her first two 3-pointers while Lahni drove for another score and Woodfolk capped the 10-0 run with a layup in the post off a feed from Harris.

“We really pushed our pace and we started to share the ball really well and it was fun to see that we were getting the ball inside and then we were getting outside kicks,” UH coach Laura Beeman said.

“I felt like we did a really good job of finding open shooters and doing it with a really good flow to our offense.”

UH went 6-for-12 from 3-point range in the first half with the Salanoas a combined 5-for-7. The twins finished a combined 11-for-18 from the field.

UC Irvine guard Andee Ritter, the Big West’s leading 3-point shooter, went 5-for-11 from long range and led the Anteaters with a game-high 19 points.

Mckenzie Piper added 15 points and hit three of UCI’s season-high 12 3-pointers, and all but seven of the Anteaters’ field goals came from outside the arc.

“That’s just what they were giving us, so that’s what we had to take,” first-year UCI coach Tamara Inoue said.

UCI forward Shereen Sutherland, the Anteaters’ leading scorer at 12.5 points per game, finished with 10 points on 2-for-10 shooting.