The Hawaii women’s basketball team maintained its grip on first place in the Big West Conference with a big road win Thursday.
Lily Wahinekapu led three players in double figures with a game-high 16 points and the Rainbow Wahine matched a season-best four-game winning streak with a 64-52 win over UC San Diego on Thursday night at LionTree Arena in La Jolla, Calif.
Reigning Big West Player of the Week Daejah Phillips added 11 points and eight rebounds and Imani Perez finished with 10 points in 22 minutes before fouling out for Hawaii (13-8, 10-2), which remained atop the conference standings ahead of UC Irvine, which beat UC Santa Barbara on Thursday night.
The Rainbow Wahine hold a one-game lead over the Anteaters and own the tiebreaker against UC Irvine after beating them twice already this season.
UH is 6-0 at home in conference play and 4-2 on the road and will look for its first two-game road sweep of the season in BWC play at UC Davis on Saturday.
The Rainbow Wahine never trailed against the Tritons (10-13, 6-6)
“(UCSD) makes you consistently have to play with pace and play with your intelligence, and they make you work and it’s hard to do that wire to wire,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said. “They are a team that when their offense gets clicking they put a lot of points together fast. Their record is shocking to me because of how well they play.”
UCSD and UH entered the game as the two best teams defensively in conference play. UH has held five opponents to fewer than 50 points in conference play and beat UCSD by the identical score at home last month.
The Tritons shot 32% from the field and were 5-for-17 from 3-point range.
Sumayah Sugapong, who led the Tritons in scoring at 14.2 points per game coming in, finished with nine in 31 minutes on 4-for-16 shooting.
“There are times your offensive would get in some lulls, and we don’t want there to be a game we only score 50 points, but we think if we hold a team to 50 or so points we have a really good shot (to win),” Beeman said. “I think 50, 52, holding teams to that is pretty darn good, particularly on the road.”
Hawaii outrebounded the Titans 37-35 despite missing post player Brooklyn Rewers for a seventh straight game.
Wahinekapu had four of Hawaii’s 15 assists and added seven rebounds, and Olivia Davies chipped in eight points, three rebounds and two assists in 13 minutes.
Hawaii has won the past three meetings against UCSD after losing the first three.
UH shot 41% (24-for-59) from the field and led by as many as 16 points early in the fourth quarter.
“We had some really good spurts in the first quarter and we had really good pace and were able to transition very, very well,” Beeman said. “We won three out of the four quarters and I think that’s really, really good, but again, it’s just continued growth, finding the right people, sharing the ball, and being able to go inside, outside.”
Hawaii used an 8-0 advantage in fast break points and a 5-0 lead in steals to build a 21-14 lead after the first quarter.
UH led 34-24 at halftime and matched its largest lead to open the third quarter after 3-pointers by Davies and MeiLani McBee prompted a UCSD timeout.
McBee had all three of UH’s blocks and Davies hit two of Hawaii’s eight 3-pointers.
Wahinekapu hit a season-high four 3-pointers on eight attempts.
Seven Rainbow Wahine had a steal.
Hawaii will close out the week at UC Davis (12-10, 8-4) on Saturday at noon.
“They are a team that has two or three really dynamic scorers,” Beeman said. “We can’t lose our assignments defensively. We have to disrupt what they do offensively because they are also a team that could put points in very quickly a lot. We’ve got to be on point.”
BIG WEST WOMEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
Hawaii 10 2 .833 — 13 8
UC Irvine 9 3 .750 1 14 7
UCSB 8 4 .667 2 14 8
Cal Poly 8 4 .667 2 12 9
UC Davis 8 4 .667 2 12 10
UC Riverside 7 5 .583 3 12 10
UC San Diego 6 6 .500 4 10 13
Long Beach St. 3 8 .273 6½ 8 13
CS Fullerton 3 8 .273 6½ 7 14
CSU Bakersfield 3 9 .250 7 6 15
CS Northridge 0 12 .000 10 2 20
Thursday
Hawaii 64, UC San Diego 52
UC Riverside 54, Cal State Bakersfield 48
UC Irvine 60, UC Santa Barbara 38
Cal Poly 75, CS Northridge 68
UC Davis 61, Cal State Fullerton 48
Saturday
Hawaii at UC Davis, noon
UC Santa Barbara at CS Northridge
UC Riverside at UC Irvine
Long Beach State at Cal Poly
Cal State Bakersfield at Cal State Fullerton
HAWAII 64, UC SAN DIEGO 52
RAINBOW WAHINE (13-8, 10-2)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Wahinekapu 28 5-14 2-2 7 4 0 16
Perez 22 5-7 0-0 3 1 5 10
Davies 13 3-8 0-0 3 2 1 8
McBee 26 2-4 0-0 4 0 3 5
Thoms 29 2-3 0-0 1 1 1 4
Phillips 29 4-6 3-4 8 2 0 11
David 18 1-8 3-4 1 2 2 6
Imai 18 2-5 0-0 4 3 1 4
Peacock 9 0-4 0-0 1 0 0 0
Berrett 8 0-0 0-0 2 0 3 0
TEAM 3
TOTALS 200 24-59 8-10 37 15 16 64
TRITONS (10-13, 6-6)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Gallegos 32 5-11 1-2 4 3 3 13
Sugapong 31 4-16 0-0 1 3 4 9
Pinto 28 2-5 2-3 3 0 1 8
Montgomery 37 3-10 0-0 2 2 2 6
Forsyth 18 0-2 2-2 1 1 0 2
Sule 25 2-5 8-12 12 0 2 12
Condron 5 1-2 0-0 2 0 0 2
Svoboda 9 0-0 0-0 1 0 1 0
Louther 6 0-0 0-0 2 1 0 0
Springs 5 0-0 0-0 1 0 1 0
Blithikioti 4 0-2 0-0 1 0 0 0
TEAM 5
TOTALS 200 17-53 13-19 35 10 14 52
Key — min: minutes played; fg-a: field goals
made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; r: rebounds; a: assists; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points.
Score By Period
Hawaii 21 13 17 13 – 64
UC San Diego 14 10 13 15 – 52
3-point goals — Hawaii 8-28 (Wahinekapu 4-8, Davies 2-6, McBee 1-2, David
1-5, Thoms 0-1, Phillips 0-1, Imai 0-1, Peacock 0-4). UCSD 5-17 (Gallegos 2-3,
Pinto 2-4, Sugapong 1-5, Forsyth 0-1,
Blithikioti 0-1, Montgomery 0-3). Steals —
Hawaii 7 (Perez, Thoms, Phillips, Imai, McBee, David, Wahinekapu). UCSD 5 (Sule
2, Pinto 2, Gallegos). Blocked shots —
Hawaii 3 (McBee 3). UCSD 3 (Sule 2,
Sugapong). Turnovers — Hawaii 13 (Phillips 3, TEAM 3, David 2, Imai, McBee, Wahinekapu, Berrett, Peacock). UCSD 13
(Sugapong 5, Pinto 2, Montgomery 2, Svoboda, Louther, Forsyth, TEAM). Technical
fouls — none. Officials — Eurskine Robinson, Johnny Mendez Jr., Anita Ortega. A —
538.
