UC Irvine further dampened Hawaii’s fading Big West tournament hopes on a soggy Sunday out at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium.

The Rainbow Wahine gave up the first goal of the game, rallied to take the lead in the first half, but could not hang on in a 3-2 loss to the Anteaters. It was the sixth straight defeat in a BWC game for UH (5-7, 0-3) going back to last season.

Irvine (8-3-4, 3-0-1) had the better looks coming out of the break and broke through on a one-timer in the box by Kiana Palacios in the 72nd minute.

“The weather was a little hard to deal with, but everybody had to get handles on the ball,” UH coach Michele Nagamine said. “We’re not going to make any excuses. They played better than we did in the second half, and they punished us for being unorganized.”

Just a minute after Lili Andino scored on a free kick from just outside the box in the 16th minute, UH responded with a set-piece score. Raisa Strom-Okimoto tapped a corner kick back to Keala Parker-Lee, who lobbed it up far post and Dani Crawford headed it down and in for the senior’s first goal since her sophomore season.

In the 24th minute, UH went up 2-1 on Leialoha Medeiros’ first career score. The Kamehameha-Maui product took a pass from Sonest Furtado near the right post and fired it across the body of goalkeeper Maddie Newsom and in at a tough angle. But UCI had the last word of the half, taking the ball away from the UH defense and scoring in breakaway fashion by Noel Baham.