COVID-19 robs University of Hawaii women’s basketball team of rematch with UC Irvine

The Rainbow Wahine road trip at UC Irvine came to an earlier-than-expected end on Saturday when the second game of a back-to-back series was canceled.

UC Irvine had defeated Hawaii, 82-68, on Friday night in Big West Conference play. The rematch was called off by Saturday afternoon. The University of Hawaii Athletics site posted a brief announcement:

“Due to an abundance of caution for the health and safety of the student-athletes, today’s women’s basketball game between Hawaii and UC Irvine has been canceled.”

UC Irvine leads the Big West with a record of 5-0 (8-5 overall). Hawaii is 2-3 in league play (3-4).

The cancellation is the fifth game disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic for the Rainbow Wahine. Two road games at Cal Poly scheduled Dec. 27-28 were called off, as were home games against UC Riverside on Jan. 8-9.

Hawaii’s next series is at home, on Friday and Saturday, against UC San Diego.

UCI has even more cancellations on its slate. The Anteaters’ Dec. 8 game at San Jose State was called off. Back-to-back road games at UC Davis on Jan. 8-9 were the next cancellation, though UCI rescheduled a game with UC Riverside on Jan. 8 to fill the gap.

A week later, home games against Long Beach State were canceled. The Anteaters played and secured wins over Cal Poly and Hawaii before the most recent call-off.

UCI’s next series is at Cal State Bakersfield next weekend. CSU Bakersfield has six cancellations on its ledger, as well.

On Friday, 19,735 new cases and 665 deaths linked to coronavirus were reported in California. The rate for the past week is down by 49% compared to two weeks earlier, according to the New York Times.

By comparison, Hawaii had one coronavirus death and 139 new cases on Friday. The average for the week, 111 new cases per day, is a decrease of 32% from two weeks prior.

Irvine is in Orange County, which is surrounded by the state’s hot spots for COVID-19 infections and deaths — Los Angeles County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.

In the past week, California has a rate of 55 new cases per 100,000 people. Hawaii has a rate of eight new cases per 100,000 people over the same span.

Bonus shot: Amy Atwell is ninth in program history all-time 3-pointers made with 108. The senior from South Perth, Australia, connected on four treys in the loss to UC Irvine on Friday to pass Melanie Azama.