Two career-best performances positioned Hawaii for a third sweep of a Big West road trip.

But for a second straight Saturday, a last-second inbounds play under the basket foiled the Rainbow Wahine basketball team’s bid to knock off a front-runner in the Big West women’s basketball race.

After UH rallied to force overtime against UC Irvine for the second time this season, Anteaters forward Nevaeh Parkinson took an inbounds pass from Deja Lee and dropped in the decisive layup with 0.4 seconds left to give UCI a 68-66 win at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif.

“That ballgame didn’t come down to that play, that’s for sure,” UH coach Laura Beeman said in a phone interview. “There were a lot of things between that play and the opening tip that caused us to be in that position.”

UH guard Meilani McBee hit five 3-pointers and scored 13 of her career-high 23 points in the fourth quarter to help the Wahine erase a seven-point deficit and send the game into overtime. Freshman center Imani Perez scored the five of her 13 points, also a personal best, in the extra period and her third 3-pointer of the season gave UH a 66-64 lead with 2:49 left.

UC Irvine tied it on Amelia Scharpf’s jumper with 1:35 remaining and UH came up empty on its next two possessions. UC Irvine took possession with 5.3 seconds left and UH guard Daejah Phillips blocked Diaba Konate’s shot out of bounds with 1.4 showing.

On the ensuing inbounds play, UCI created a traffic jam in the lane as Parkinson broke open for the pass from Lee.

“There’s two options to look at — (Parkinson) was the option that was open and DJ did a really good job of reading it,” UCI coach Tamara Inoue said in a phone interview. “We like to hold it just to see what develops because we always feel it’s not the initial break, it’s going to be the secondary, and I thought it was well played by our point guard.”

A week earlier, Long Beach State’s Courtney Murphy broke loose on an inbound play and drew a foul on her shot attempt. Her two free throws with 1.7 second left were the difference in the Beach’s 48-47 win at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

“We just have to be better defensively and have better communication,” Beeman said. “Inbounds plays are tight angles and we just have to be better on our inbounds defense. We’ll take a look at that and definitely work on that over the next couple weeks.”

The Rainbow Wahine (13-14, 11-7 Big West) return home to close the regular season and will face Cal State Northridge on Thursday and UC Santa Barbara on Saturday on senior night at the Sheriff Center. UH fell into fourth place in the conference standings, a game behind UCSB (18-9, 11-6), as the Wahine aim for the third seed in the Big West tournament in Henderson, Nev.

“The two games next week are huge, but we need to continue to put ourselves in positions to close games out and win ballgames,” Beeman said. “The more we’re in these situations … and the more experience we get, the better we’re going to be.”

UC Irvine (22-5, 14-2 BWC), which canceled two games due to a lack of healthy players before returning to action last Thursday, broke the program record for wins in a season in completing the season sweep of UH. The Anteaters lost their top three scorers this season to injuries and had nine players suited up on Saturday, including a member of the soccer team.

Parkinson finished with 12 points on 5-for-6 shooting and 10 rebounds. Nikki Tom and Lee had 14 points each for the Anteaters, who pulled out a 71-67 win in OT on Jan. 19 in Manoa.

“You always hope that your team is really going to fight for one another and they really do care,” Inoue said. “They don’t care about who gets the credit. They really care about the end goal and it’s fun to be a part of.”

UC Irvine took a 47-42 lead into the fourth quarter before McBee caught fire. She hit three 3-pointers in the quarter and twice stepped inside the arc to hit game-tying jumpers — the second coming with 52.5 seconds left to knot the game at 58-58 — while providing 13 of UH’s 16 points in the period.

“We know she has that potential. I’m hoping this is her confidence game,” Beeman said of McBee, who played 43 minutes. “Super proud of that kid for stepping up and not being afraid to shoot and keeping us in that ballgame. It was just a fantastic feeling watching her do what she did today.”

UH had possession with fove seconds left in regulation and Perez missed a corner 3-pointer as time expired.

“We had a short clock. I would rather her shoot that and come as close as she did than not get a shot off,” Beeman said.