UC San Diego turned its first women’s basketball meeting with Hawaii into a landmark evening for the program.
The Tritons drained a season-high 16 3-pointers, including 11 in the second half, and ran away to an 82-58 Big West victory over the Rainbow Wahine on Thursday in La Jolla, Calif.
UCSD guard Sydney Brown hit five 3-pointers and led the Tritons with 25 points, also a season best, and grabbed 16 rebounds in coach Heidi VanDerveer’s 200th career win.
No spectators were allowed in RIMAC Arena to see the Tritons (6-7, 3-1 Big West) go 11-for-21 behind the arc in the second half to pull away from the Wahine (4-7, 1-1) in the first matchup between the programs. Both scheduled meetings between the teams last season were canceled.
UCSD guards Emily Cangelosi and Madison Baxter both hit three 3-pointers and finished with 15 points each. Brown led the Tritons with six assists while shooting 9-for-21 from the field.
“We just didn’t show up,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said in a phone interview. “We have a lot of work to do. You can tell we’re very discombobulated on both sides of the ball right now.”
UH forward Amy Atwell, the reigning Big West Player of the Week, limped off the court in the third quarter but returned later in the period and led the Rainbow Wahine with 16 points and 12 rebounds for her second straight double-double.
Point guard Kelsie Imai contributed six points and posted season highs with seven rebounds and nine assists and freshman Jacque David hit two 3-pointers and finished with eight points. Guard Olivia Davies returned to the rotation and scored 10 points off the bench, with two 3-pointers, in the first half to help the Wahine stay within striking distance at halftime.
But the Wahine couldn’t keep pace with the Tritons in the second half.
“Continuity was a big issue,” Beeman said. “I also feel like the game was just too fast for them tonight. That’s on me. We have to do a better job in creating game-like situations in practice.”
The Rainbow Wahine had a deeper rotation compared to their Big West opener against Cal State Fullerton last Saturday with the return of Davies and guards Daejah Phillips and McKenna Haire.
Coming off the 54-52 comeback win at home, the Rainbow Wahine again fell behind in the first half on Thursday and UCSD opened up a 26-13 lead on a Cangelosi 3-pointer with 7:10 left in the second quarter.
UH answered with an 11-2 surge, with David scoring on a layup in the post off an assist from Imai then stepping outside to hit a corner 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 28-24.
UCSD led 35-28 at halftime and Atwell, who was held to three points in the first half, opened the third quarter by scoring on a layup while drawing a foul.
Atwell went to the floor while attempting to secure a rebound with 7:04 left in the third quarter and limped off the court after being attended to by a team trainer. She returned about three minutes later, but UCSD was in the midst of a 15-2 run and led 53-36 when Brown dropped a 3-pointer from the top of the key with four minutes left in the period.
“We couldn’t get stops … We would score two or three and they would come back and score six or eight,” Beeman said.
UCSD took a 61-43 lead into the fourth quarter and continued to pull away in the fourth quarter in hitting five of its seven field goals from behind the arc.
The Tritons moved into the Big West lead with 104 total 3-pointers on 33.1% shooting with their performance from long range on Thursday. On the other end of the 11-team ranking, UH is surrendering 35% 3-point shooting to its opponents this season.
UH continues its first road trip of the conference season on Saturday at first place UC Irvine (8-6, 3-0). The Anteaters opened the week with a 59-44 win over UCSD on Tuesday.
“We have to figure out practice tomorrow and make some changes and get some intensity going and get some game reps going,” Beeman said. “Irvine is playing very well right now and we’ve got a tough game on Saturday, and if we’re feeling bad for ourselves about what happened tonight then it’ll be replica of tonight but worse.”
