Hawaii forward Amy Atwell was probably glad Kallin Spiller didn’t listen to her.
With Saturday’s Big West opener tied and time dwindling, Atwell found herself deep in the post with Spiller holding the ball at the top of the key.
“I had actually yelled at Kallin to shoot the ball,” Atwell said of the instant before Spiller released the ball.
Instead of taking the shot, Spiller lofted a pass into Atwell, who dropped in the go-ahead layup with 5.3 seconds left in the Rainbow Wahine basketball team’s 54-52 win over Cal State Fullerton on Saturday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
“I screamed at her to shoot because I was in the inside in perfect rebounding position,’ Atwell said. “She was able to deliver a really good pass and I just had to do the easy part and finish it.”
The last two of Atwell’s game-high 20 points gave UH a win in a delayed opening to the Big West season after the Rainbow Wahine had their first three conference games canceled due to COVID-19 protocols.
The Wahine entered the game with nine players suited up and guards Nae Nae Calhoun, Daejah Phillips, Olivia Davies and McKenna Haire and center Maeve Donnelly among the absences.
The thinned rotation pushed guard Ashley Thoms into the lineup for her first UH start and the transfer from Weber State drained two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to finish with 11 points. Her first gave UH a 41-39 lead with 7:45 left, and she hit another in a 9-2 UH run later in the quarter.
“My mind was kind of all over the place (before the game),” Thoms said. “I was excited, I was nervous, but I knew I had to calm myself down … also the help of my teammates just keeping me confident and making sure I know what I’m doing so I felt prepared.”
Spiller made her first appearance since Nov. 21 and added eight points and the decisive assist. Atwell, who entered Big West play as the conference’s leading scorer, grabbed a career-high 12 rebounds in her first double-double since Feb. 1, 2020.
Coming out of the extended break, the Wahine took a full quarter to find a rhythm, going 1-for-12 from the field in the first period. They managed to cut a 13-point deficit to five going into halftime, fell behind by 10 again in the third quarter, then rallied and surged ahead in the fourth before the frantic finish.
“It was just a grind, it was ugly all night,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “Our execution was pretty sloppy tonight — thank goodness we saved it for the last play of the game to execute and Kallin delivered the ball to Amy.
“It was nice to see them say, ‘No, we’re not going to lose this ballgame,’ come back with our own little run and get some key stops and boards.”
‘Iolani graduate Lily Wahinekapu led Cal State Fullerton with nine points on 4-for-15 shooting. She dropped back-to-back jumpers in the third quarter to give the Titans a 35-25 lead and drained a 3-pointer with 2:16 left to cut UH’s lead to 50-48.
The Titans tied the game on Ashlee Lewis’ putback with 34.5 seconds left before Atwell scored in the final seconds. Cal State Fullerton’s Fujika Nimmo had a shot to tie it up again, but her baseline jumper was short and time expired in the scramble for the rebound.
The Titans shot 38% from the field and went 1-for-2 from the free-throw line while UH went 12-for-21.
“That’s tough. Maybe we’re not drawing fouls the right way. We’ll look at that as well,” Cal State Fullerton coach Jeff Harada said.
“But we just gotta execute better. We fought and gave ourselves a chance, and came up short. We’ll go back to the drawing board and fix some things, and hopefully the next time we play them we’ll be better prepared.”
