The Hawaii women’s basketball team hung around for the majority of Sunday’s game against Washington before being left behind.
Hawaii struggled over the final 12 minutes and lost to Washington 58-41 in the finale of the Rainbow Wahine Showdown before 629 fans at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
“A tale of two halves. I don’t like losing games, but I’m proud of the way this team fought for a half,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said. “That was a fun half. It was good basketball and we went toe-to-toe with them.”
MeiLani McBee scored 12 points — all on 3-pointers — and Lily Wahinekapu added nine for the Rainbow Wahine, who trailed 25-23 at halftime.
Dalayah Daniels dominated inside with 19 points and nine rebounds for the Huskies. She was 7-of-11 from the field.
“Dalayah has done such a great job expanding her game,” Washington coach Tina Langley said. “She is a player who can play on the perimeter and play in the low post. She’s worked really hard on her low post game and I thought you saw that show today.”
Hawaii (2-5) was within 36-33 after Daejah Phillips’ free throw with 3:08 left in the third, but Washington (7-0) scored seven unanswered points over the final 2:42 to take a 43-33 advantage.
The Huskies made 8-of-12 shots in the third quarter with players cutting sharply to the basket for easy shots.
“They were switching a lot of screens and we wanted to be able to back (cut) that and slip and curl and attack the rim more,” Langley said.
Washington went on a 12-3 run over the final seven minutes with Sayvia Sellers scoring eight of her 10 points during the surge.
“The conditioning got us a little bit. They’re definitely bigger, stronger, faster,” Beeman said. “They broke us down both offensively and defensively.”
McBee said: “It was a snowball effect and we kept getting into ourselves.”
The Rainbow Wahine finished 13-of-47 from the field, including 8-of-32 from 3-point range.
“Some of the 3s we got were pretty good looks,” Beeman said. “The difference between them and us, particularly in the second half, is they hit their 3s and we didn’t.”
The Huskies were 23-of-50 from the field and 7-of-21 from 3-point range. They came in averaging 80 points per game.
Washington held a 36-27 rebounding advantage. Brooklyn Rewers had nine rebounds for Hawaii, which has been out-rebounded in every game this season.
McBee hit the Rainbow Wahine’s first two shots — both 3-pointers — to give her team a 6-2 lead about one minute in.
“That’s my role, to shoot and my team trusts me in shooting and I was struggling a bit the first two games so I just let if fly,” she said.
Hawaii went 1-for-10 the rest of the quarter.
Washington went on a 7-2 run to open the second quarter to take its largest lead of the first half at 22-14 with 6:46 remaining.
The Rainbow Wahine fought back to tie it at 23-23 on Wahinekapu’s layup with 14 seconds left. Lauren Schwartz hit a layup with seven seconds left to put the Huskies up two going into halftime.
Wahinekapu scored seven points and Imani Perez added six for Hawaii, which attempted 19 3-pointers among its 26 shots before halftime.
Daniels finished with eight points and Schwartz had seven for the Huskies before halftime.
In Sunday’s earlier game, Idaho State defeated Air Force 55-52.
Washington won the tournament with a 3-0 record, Hawaii, Idaho State and Air Force all finished 1-2.
The Rainbow Wahine’s next game is against visiting San Jose State at 2 p.m. next Sunday.
WASHINGTON 58, HAWAII 41
HUSKIES (7-0)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Stines 35 2-6 0-0 3 4 1 5
Schwartz 29 4-8 0-0 0 2 3 9
Noble 32 3-6 0-1 5 2 1 7
Daniels 35 7-11 5-8 9 3 2 19
Ladine 26 3-10 0-0 6 2 2 8
Sellers 20 4-8 0-0 2 0 2 10
Brown 2 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
Briggs 12 0-0 0-0 2 1 0 0
Long 10 0-1 0-0 4 0 2 0
TEAM 4
TOTALS 200 23-50 5-9 36 14 13 58
RAINBOW WAHINE (2-5)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Thoms 14 0-3 0-0 0 1 2 0
Wahinekapu 32 4-9 0-0 3 2 0 9
Perez 37 1-6 0-0 4 2 2 2
Rewers 25 2-6 0-0 9 1 2 5
McBee 34 4-10 0-0 2 2 1 12
Imai 15 0-4 0-0 1 1 2 0
Phillips 19 0-3 5-6 0 1 3 5
Peacock 11 0-2 1-2 1 0 0 1
Davies 13 2-4 1-2 3 0 1 7
TEAM 4
TOTALS 200 13-47 7-10 27 10 13 41
Score By Period
Washington 15 10 18 15 – 58
Hawaii 12 11 10 8 – 41
3-point goals — Washington 7-21 (Sellers 2-3, Ladine 2-5, Noble 1-3, Stines 1-4, Schwartz 1-5, Daniels 0-1). Hawaii 8-32 (McBee 4-9, Davies 2-4, Rewers 1-3, Wahinekapu 1-4, Imai 0-1, Phillips 0-2, Peacock 0-2, Thoms 0-3, Perez 0-4). Steals — Washington 5 (Noble 2, Schwartz, Sellers, Long). Hawaii 4 (Wahinekapu, Perez, Rewers, McBee). Blocked shots — Washington 2 (Daniels 2). Hawaii 3 (Perez 2, Peacock). Turnovers — Washington 8 (Ladine 3, Stines, Schwartz, Daniels, Briggs). Hawaii 13 (Phillips 3, McBee 2, Imai 2, Davies 2, Wahinekapu, Perez, Rewers). Technical fouls — Ladine. Officials — Michael Price, Steve Piercy, Starr Rivera. A — 1,780.
