Wahine overtake Highlanders

Points were at a premium at UC Riverside’s SRC Arena, and that was just fine for the Hawaii women’s basketball team on Thursday night.

The Rainbow Wahine remained in contention for a double bye in the Big West tournament after a 51-44 win over the Highlanders. UH (13-15, 9-6 Big West) pulled into a third-place tie with Riverside with one game to play — Saturday at Cal State Northridge, which resides in second.

The Matadors beat the Wahine 49-29 at the Stan Sheriff Center in January, but that seems like a whole different season at this point.

“This team has no quit. We’re going to keep grinding games out, we’re going to keep putting ourselves in positions to win,” UH coach Laura Beeman said in a postgame phone interview. “We know we have a totally different opponent, and a very difficult game on Saturday, but if we show up, which I know we will, we’re going to put ourselves in position to win the ballgame, and that’s what you want.”

If the Rainbow Wahine find a way to beat CSUN (16-13, 10-5), they’ll move into a second-place tie in the standings and win the tiebreaker for the second seed, and receive a double bye into the semifinals. With a loss, they will have a single bye into the second round as either the third or fourth seed.

The Wahine went to freshman post Myrrah Joseph as the focal point of their attack late. She earned repeated trips to the free-throw line, going only 2-for-11, but put consistent pressure on the defense. Sophomore Jadynn Alexander contributed some timely offensive rebounds.

Joseph scored 14 points on 6-for-9 shooting from the field and grabbed seven rebounds off the bench. Point guard Tia Kanoa scored 11 and Courtney Middap contributed 10, including a big 3-pointer for an eight-point lead with 1:26 left.

“I think it was a bank, but she hit it,” Beeman said. “We’ll take it, we’ll absolutely take it. Right when we needed it, she was there.”

Riverside (15-14, 9-6) was without its star player, Jannon Otto, who was in street clothes on the sideline. That came as a surprise to UH.

“Part of winning this time of year is being healthy,” Beeman said. “For their team’s sake, I hope she comes back. It’s not fun to have your best player down. But they are such a unique team with what they do offensively, they still pose problems for us. Their length is challenging, but I thought the girls put their heads down and continued to do what we needed to do to win a ballgame.”

Malou De Kergret led the Highlanders with 17 points.