Rainbow Wahine team up for big win

Converting on one opportunity created another for the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team.

Eyeing the third seed in next week’s Big West tournament, the Rainbow Wahine needed some help elsewhere on Thursday to open up a chance to move up in the conference standings.

They got the result they needed when UC Davis routed UC Santa Barbara and capitalized on the good fortune by holding off Cal State Northridge in a 66-58 win at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center to open their final homestand of the season.

Hawaii forward Kallin Spiller led a balanced scoring spread with 12 points and freshman Imani Perez posted her first double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds to help the Rainbow Wahine (14-14, 12-7 Big West) move into a tie with UC Santa Barbara for third place in the conference standings.

The third seed in the Big West tournament in Henderson, Nev., will be on the line when UH plays host to UCSB (19-10, 12-7) in the regular-season finale on Saturday.

“We know it’s a big game on Saturday, but there’s no better way to prepare you for the tournament than big games,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “It happened to us last year and we took care of business.”

UH first needed to attend to business against a CSUN team destined to play in one of the tournament’s first-round games on Tuesday at the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson as one of the conference’s bottom four seeds.

Perez sparked the Wahine with seven points in the game’s first five minutes and UH never trailed on the way to a fifth straight win in the series with CSUN.

The 6-foot-4 Perez has started the past four games, and had a season-high 13 points in last Saturday’s overtime loss at UC Irvine before posting UH’s fifth double-double of the season.

“I think starting has obviously grown my confidence,” said Perez, who also had a career-best four steals on Thursday. “It’s also helped me learn the game better and get used to it as I go on. Even coming off the bench, I still like looking at the game being able to get a feel for it.”

UH did have to weather a fourth-quarter drought and saw a 19-point lead cut to seven in the final minute before holding off the Matadors (7-23, 6-14).

UH guard Daejah Phillips finished with 10 points and guards Kelsie Imai, Lily Wahinekapu and Meilani McBee added nine each. Guard McKenna Haire contributed seven points as she and Spiller opened their final homestand. The graduate students will be honored after Saturday’s senior-night game.

“I think that’s probably where our teams have always been,” said Beeman, now in her 11th season at UH. “We play team basketball. We can share the ball, spread the wealth, and we have lot of people chipping away.

“No. 1, it makes us much more difficult to scout. The girls love it because everyone’s contributing. I think defensively it helps us get going a little bit with an edge. So to have a lot of people in double digits or close to it, it’s what we typically do, so I’m excited that it’s happening now.”

Tess Amundsen, the Big West’s fourth leading scorer, scored seven of her team-high 14 points in the fourth quarter for CSUN.

UH led 59-40 when Haire scored on a putback with 8:11 left. CSUN then went on an 11-1 run, with Amundsen going on a personal five-point surge to cut UH’s lead to 60-51 with 2:56 left.

Imai broke the run with a driving layup to end a span of 6:34 between UH field goals. CSUN closed to 62-55 with 39 seconds left, but UH put the game away from the free-throw line.

“At the time I didn’t feel it was a really big bucket, it’s just a routine layup,” Imai said of UH’s final field goal. “I think it’s good it got the team’s energy back because that’s something we need to focus on, is just maintaining the same energy throughout the game.

“We’re hard to handle as a team when we’re playing team ball and with high energy.”

Long Beach State (17-2) and UC Irvine (15-2) hold the top two seeds followed by UH and UCSB, with UC Davis (11-7) currently fifth.