Big West Conference openers continued to be unkind to the Hawaii women’s basketball team.

The Rainbow Wahine rallied from down double digits but ultimately came up short in a 72-68 loss to Cal State Fullerton at Titan Gym on Saturday.

Behind backup forward Amy Atwell, UH (4-10, 0-1 Big West) came back to take the lead in the third quarter, but it was short lived, and the Wahine dropped to 1-6 in Big West openers since rejoining the Big West in 2012.

“It really wasn’t our offense, per se. We turned the ball over 11 times, which is very, very good. The problem was we fouled too much,” UH coach Laura Beeman said in a postgame phone interview. “We don’t get stops when we need stops, and we absolutely foul too much. We sent them to the foul line 24 times (the Titans made 20), and we only went (11-for-12).

“And so this is multiple games now that we have sent our opponent to the free-throw line and they have made more free throws than we have attempted. If we continue to do that, we will continue to lose. We are one of the bottom teams in the country when it comes to foul rate.”

The Wahine were without starting shooting guard Julissa Tago because of an injury and needed a scoring lift. They found it in Atwell, who hit her first six shots and scored a career-high 25 points in just 16 minutes off the bench. She finished 9-for-11, including a 3 at the buzzer, to account for most of a 38-11 disparity in the teams’ bench scoring. The sophomore’s previous season high was just seven points and her overall best was 17, set last year against Northern Arizona.

“It was a bright spot,” Beeman said. “Without ‘J’ we needed to find some additional offense and Amy was able to do that for us. Her shot was easy for her tonight. … I also thought Lauren Rewers (10 points) did a very nice job against their post player (Daeja Smith). She’s one of the better post players in our conference.”

Smith was held to 13 points and eight rebounds and became a member of Fullerton’s 1,000-point club.

UH leading scorer Kenna Woodfolk continued to struggle, scoring four points while dealing with foul trouble again coming off a scoreless outing in UH’s nonconference finale at Nevada.

UH, behind 37-31 at halftime, trailed by 11 in the third but gained its first lead in the period at 52-50 on an Atwell layup. Leah Salanoa’s three free throws kept the run going to 55-50.

Rewers’ shot inside gave UH the lead for the final time at 60-59 with 4:37 to play, until Jade Vega hit a 3, launching a 7-0 Titans run.

Atwell was fouled on a 3 and made all three with 15 seconds left, bringing UH within 68-65. UH took fouls and Fullerton made its free throws to seal it.

Guard Raina Perez scored 23 points to lead the Titans (9-5, 1-0), coached by Hawaii native Jeff Harada, while Vega added 17 points, eight rebounds and six assists.

UH returns home from the one-game trip and plays UC Davis (9-5, 1-0) on Saturday.