Hawaii stayed close early and finished strong against BYU on Thursday.

But the Cougars’ burst in the middle of the North Shore matchup was too much for the Rainbow Wahine basketball team to overcome in a 67-56 loss at the Cannon Activities Center in Laie.

BYU opened up a double-digit lead in the second quarter and the Cougars broke away early in the third to stretch the margin to 26. UH rallied late to close to within seven in the game’s final minute before falling to its third straight loss.

The Rainbow Wahine (4-4) cut down on their turnovers, but shot 23 percent (7-for-30) in the first half and managed one field goal in the final 8:11 before halftime. BYU (5-3) took control with a 13-2 run to close the second quarter, hit its first six shots after the break and held on to win its second game in the Tom Weston Classic hosted by BYU Hawaii.

“We have to shoot the ball better and we’re still making too many mistakes and teams are capitalizing on our mistakes and we’re not capitalizing on theirs,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “Tonight our defense didn’t show up either. So it was just kind of a bad night on both ends of the floor.”

The Rainbow Wahine, the designated road team, trailed by 19 with less than four minutes left before going on a 12-0 run. They closed to 63-56 on two Destiny King free throws with 37.9 seconds left and came up with a steal on an inbounds play. But King’s 3-pointer was off the mark and the Wahine would get no closer.

They complete a run of five games in eight days by taking on No. 12 Texas A&M (5-1) today at 5 p.m. BYU plays Texas A&M on Saturday.

“Definitely it wasn’t the best of games, but the bright spot is the last quarter, the last few minutes of the game. We definitely want to try to take that into tomorrow’s game,” said UH center Kalei Adolpho, who led the Wahine with a career-high 17 points and nine rebounds.

King finished with 13 points and freshman Leah Salanoa hit three 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to fuel UH’s comeback bid. The Wahine entered the game averaging 20 turnovers and committed a season-low 12 on Thursday. But they had trouble converting the opportunities into points in the first half.

“Hawaii’s a very aggressive team and the first half I thought defensively we played as well as we’ve played all year,” BYU coach Jeff Judkins said.

BYU was led by the guard tandem of Lexi Rydalch (19 points) and Makenzi Pulsipher (18 points, four 3-pointers) and the post play of Kalani Purcell, who finished the night with 16 points and 16 rebounds.

‘Iolani graduate Kylie Maeda started at point guard for BYU and contributed seven points, two assists and two steals and hit a 3-pointer in BYU’s second-quarter run. Radford graduate Jasmine Moody, a freshman forward, also started for BYU.

“It’s been really special. That was the hardest decision for me, to sign and go away from home because my family can’t watch me play,” Maeda said. “So it’s really cool my coaches scheduled these games for me to come back home and this works amazing.”

Adolpho passed her season high in accounting for 11 of UH’s 18 points in the first half on 5-for-8 shooting while the rest of the team went 2-for-22.

“Just not good shots, rushing things, not getting the ball where it needed to go,” Beeman said of the dry spell. “The ball needed to continue to go inside and we couldn’t get it inside, and then we were very taking poor shots.”

BYU took advantage and went 7-for-8 from the field to start the second half.

Maeda said defense is “something that our coach really preaches to us … and I think that’s what helped our offense get a little kick start.”

Brigham Young 67, Hawaii 56

Key — fg-a: field goals made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; r: rebounds; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points; a: assists; to: turnovers; min: minutes played.

Halftime — Brigham Young 31, Hawaii 18

3-points goals — Hawaii 4-17 (Salanoa 3-3, Wimbley 1-6, Toeaina 0-1, Harris 0-2, King 0-2, Karaitiana 0-3). Brigham Young 6-19 (Pulsipher 4-5, Purcell 1-2, Maeda 1-4, Nielson 0-2, Rydalch 0-6). Steals — Hawaii 3 (King 2, Adolpho). Brigham Young 6 (Maeda 2, Purcell 2, Nielson, Wayment). Blocked shots — Hawaii 2 (Morris, Karaitiana). Brigham Young 1 (Nielson). Turnovers — Hawaii 12 (King 3, Toeaina 3, Adolpho 2, Huff 2, Karaitiana, Morris). Brigham Young 13 (Rydalch 3, Nielson 2, Pulsipher 2, Purcell 2, Broadhead, Maeda, Moody, Wayment). Technical fouls — none. Officials — Ashley Ellis, Laura Rahe, Ken Sowby. A—257.