RELATED PHOTO GALLERY The Hawaii women’s basketball team had no answer for UC Riverside’s Hannah Wickstrom.
The Big West Conference’s second-leading scorer ushered in the new year with a career-high 36 points, including six points in a closing 10-2 run, to knock off the Rainbow Wahine 65-58 on Thursday night.
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A Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 725 saw Hawaii (6-7 overall ) drop to 0-3 in Big West play for only the second time in Laura Beeman’s tenure as head coach.
“Second quarter got us, ” Beeman said. “I thought we started the game really well rebounding and being aggressive and then that went away, and then in the fourth quarter our defensive execution down the stretch just went away.”
Hawaii was outscored 17-8 in the second quarter and committed six of its 14 turnovers in the period to fall behind 32-24 at halftime.
Freshman Keiara Curtis led Hawaii with a career-high 17 points off the bench and Imani Perez added eight points and 12 rebounds.
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Hawaii gave up 10 straight points after Bailey Flavell, who ended the game with 15 points, made two free throws to put the Rainbow Wahine ahead 56-55 with 2 :07 remaining.
UH missed nine of its final 11 shots and lost despite finishing with fewer turnovers than the Highlanders (15 ), who are 4-9 overall and 2-1 in the Big West.
“I felt we probably should have pushed more in transition because their transition defense was not that good, ” Curtis said. “Just got to go back and watch film and figure out what we need to do better as guards.”
Wickstrom, who is from Melbourne, Australia, shot 11-for-11 from the free-throw line and made 11 of 19 shots from the field. She also had six rebounds, two assists and two steals.
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“She’s a kid that struggles going left and we let her score probably 90 % of her points going to her dominant hand, ” Beeman said. “There was a 3-minute stretch in the fourth quarter where we weren’t switching when we were supposed to and we allowed her to get downhill every time she wanted to.”
Hawaii junior guard Jovi Lefotu, who has had two ACL injuries in her college career, went down to the floor and eventually limped to the sideline midway through the fourth quarter and did not return.
The Rainbow Wahine made a change to their starting lineup, giving freshman Kyra Webb her first opportunity to open a game on the floor.
The Highlanders made six of their first eight shots to jump out to a 14-8 lead. Curtis, coming off an appearance on the all-tournament team of the Maui Classic, drove for consecutive fast-break layups and Jade Peacock closed out the quarter with a 3-pointer to give UH a 16-15 lead.
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The Rainbow Wahine went scoreless for nearly five minutes in the second quarter, allowing UC Riverside to move back in front on a Bria Shine jumper.
Hawaii missed 10 consecutive shots from the field and had to call a 30-second timeout with 1 :55 remaining after Kaylani Polk went coast-to-coast on a steal and layup to give the Highlanders a 29-20 lead.
Hawaii saw four consecutive possessions end in a turnover and trailed 32-24 at the half, with Wickstrom accounting for 18 points on 5-for-9 shooting.
“We’ve got to figure out execution, ” Beeman said. “We’ve got to figure out some application, because the excuse of us being young is something we can only use for so much longer before it just comes down to a lack of execution.”
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UH chipped into the Highlanders’ lead in the fourth quarter and pulled within two points on a corner 3 from Curtis with 27 seconds to go.
UC Riverside got loose on a back cut for a layup off an inbounds play in the final seconds to stretch the lead to four at 46-42 entering the fourth quarter.
Hawaii scored the first seven points of the second quarter to retake the lead before falling in the end.
Up next for UH is UC San Diego on Saturday at 7 p.m.
BIG WEST WOMEN Conference Overall W L Pct. GB W L UC Irvine 3 0 1.000—12 2 CS Fullerton 3 0 1.000—7 6 UC Davis 2 0 1.000 1 ⁄2 9 4 UC San Diego 2 0 1.000 1 ⁄2 7 5 UCSB 2 1.667 1 10 2 UC Riverside 2 1.667 1 4 9 CS Northridge 1 2.333 2 5 7 Long Beach St. 0 2.000 21 ⁄2 1 11 Hawaii 0 3.000 3 6 7 CSU Bakersfield 0 3.000 3 5 8 Cal Poly 0 3.000 3 2 11 Thursday UC Riverside 65, Hawaii 58 UC San Diego 75, Cal Poly 54 CS Fullerton 62, UC Santa Barbara 61 UC Irvine 82, Cal State Bakersfield 63 UC Davis 85, Cal State Northridge 66 Saturday UC San Diego at Hawaii, 7 p.m.
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Cal State Fullerton at UC Irvine UC Davis at Cal State Bakersfield Long Beach State at Cal Poly Cal State Northridge at UC Santa Barbara UC RIVERSIDE 65, HAWAII 58 HIGHLANDERS (4-9, 2-1 BIG WEST )
NO. PLAYER MIN FG-A 3PT-A FT-A O-DREB TREB PF A TO BLK STL PTS 07 Wickstrom 36 11-19 3-6 11-11 1-5 6 1 2 3 0 2 36 02 Hackley 29 3-9 0-2 5-6 0-3 3 4 2 1 0 3 11 01 Polk 34 3-8 1-5 0-0 1-6 7 3 3 2 0 1 7 41 Shine 32 2-4 0-1 0-0 1-4 5 0 3 1 1 0 4 22 Swanson 23 2-6 0-1 0-0 1-2 3 3 0 2 0 2 4 23 Mejia 6 1-1 1-1 0-0 0-1 1 0 0 1 0 0 3 09 Chocano 17 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-3 3 1 1 2 0 1 0 10 Minshall 13 0-3 0-2 0-2 0-0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 30 Sylla 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 32 Moreno Tallon 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 Cobbs 2 0-2 0-2 0-0 1-1 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 TEAM 3-3 6 1 Totals 200 22-53 5-21 16-19 8-28 36 14 11 15 1 9 65 Percentages 41.5 23.8 84.2 RAINBOW WAHINE (6-7, 0-3 BIG WEST )
NO. PLAYER MIN FG-A 3PT-A FT-A O-DREB TREB PF A TO BLK STL PTS 03 Flavell 28 5-11 0-1 5-6 1-1 2 3 0 2 1 1 15 33 Neverson 27 5-9 0-4 1-2 1-1 2 2 0 0 1 1 11 04 Lefotu 17 1-6 0-1 0-0 0-2 2 3 0 4 0 1 2 24 Tamilo 12 1-4 0-0 0-0 3-3 6 1 0 0 2 1 2 06 Webb 15 0-2 0-2 0-2 1-1 2 2 0 4 0 2 0 11 Curtis 26 7-15 2-6 1-2 0-0 0 2 3 1 1 1 17 12 Perez 28 3-9 1-3 1-2 3-9 12 0 1 1 1 0 8 22 Peacock 27 1-3 1-2 0-0 1-5 6 4 3 0 2 1 3 20 Forsyth 13 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-2 2 1 0 1 0 1 0 02 Bond 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 08 Moors 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 TEAM 0-1 1 Totals 200 23-60 4-20 8-14 10-25 35 20 7 14 8 9 58 Percentages 38.3 20.0 57.1 Score By Period UC RIVERSIDE 15 17 14 19 – 65 HAWAII 16 8 18 16 – 58 Technical fouls—none. Officials—Richard Waters, Esther Hsu, Steve Piercy. A—1, 688.
