HONOLULU — As quickly as the Hawaii women’s basketball team lost first place, the Rainbow Wahine took it back.
UH again assumed the pole position in the Big West with a critical 67-57 win over UC Irvine, which entered Saturday in the top spot after UH dropped a surprising decision to UC San Diego on Thursday.
“I absolutely knew it was in them,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “Friday morning, I sent them the definition of ‘resilient.’ Not because they needed to know what it was, but because I believed in them. This is who we are.”
UH (13-9, 9-3 BWC) leads UCI and Long Beach State (10-4 each) by percentage points with four games to play before the Big West tournament at the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nev. With the home-and-home sweep of Irvine, the Wahine won the season series against their two closest competitors.
Amy Atwell bounced back from her worst game of the season – a surprising home loss to UC San Diego on Thursday – to hit five 3-pointers en route to 25 points, her 10th 20-point game in 2021-22. She grabbed 13 rebounds for her fifth double-double of the campaign.
Atwell shot 1-for-9 for a season-low four points in the 62-60 loss to UCSD. She was 7-for-13 (5-for-7 on 3s) on Saturday in front of 533 at SimpliFi Arena, hitting two 3s in the first quarter, then compiling a nine-point second quarter that included a four-point play.
“I just didn’t want to play that badly twice in a row,” the conference’s leading scorer said. “Throughout my career, I feel like I’ve always had that bounce-back game. … I knew I needed to come out tonight and do my job for my team if we wanted to win tonight.”
Center Kallin Spiller had her most productive game since November with 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting. Backup center Nnenna Orji added nine points on 7-for-10 shooting from the free-throw line.
Spiller had her greatest impact at the start of both halves.
“Every chance I get to get the ball low and get that pressure released off of Amy (that helps us),” said Spiller, a graduate transfer who played at Columbia and Seattle University as an undergraduate. “Amy always has a big job every game. She’s the focus of the other team’s scout. So if we have our low post step up, our guards on the wings, if anyone can relieve that pressure, it’ll help her get more open. … That’s part of each of us finding our roles to make it easier on each other.”
UH won the backboards by 12 to help negate 20 turnovers. Many came against heavy ball pressure; UCI notched 10 steals.
UH next heads out on its last regular-season road trip to the bottom two teams in the conference, Cal State Bakersfield (2-8) and Cal Poly (2-9).
“After celebrating tonight we’re going to shift our focus to this road trip,” Beeman said.
UH led by nine after a 25-point first stanza. The Anteaters pushed back in the second, scoring the first seven points of the period and closing it with a tying layup by Nikki Tom at the halftime buzzer.
Forward Daejah Phillips (six points, six assists) went down in the third quarter after taking a knee to the temple while prone with UH leading 49-40. She was able to walk off after a few minutes and returned later in the quarter.
UH settled for a 53-48 lead going into the fourth after Nae Nae Calhoun hit a 3. Irvine was held to 3-for-11 shooting in the fourth as the Wahine established a 60-50 lead on Atwell’s step-back 3 with under five minutes left.
Freshman guard Kayla Williams led the Anteaters with 21 points, four assists and two steals.
The game was delayed for 15 to 20 minutes in the first quarter because of a scoreboard malfunction.