Hawaii’s quick start gave the Rainbow Wahine the luxury of running out the clock in earning a shot to defend their Big West water polo title.
The host and top-seeded Rainbow Wahine took a three-goal lead less than three minutes into Friday’s semifinal match with UC San Diego. They saw a six-goal cushion cut to two in the final period but held on for a 14-12 win at Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex.
UH freshman Morgan McDowall scored four goals less than 10 minutes into the match and sophomore Alba Bonamusa Boix added four more to lead UH into the Big West final for the fourth straight tournament and seventh time since 2013.
“Even though the game today was little bit chaotic, obviously having a close game is better and helps us to work for tomorrow,” Bonamusa Boix said. “We expect a good game and a good level of water polo. … Having the game we had today is going to make us better for tomorrow.”
Fourth-ranked UH (16-5) will face No. 5 and second-seeded UC Irvine for the Big West championship for the sixth time today at 5:45 p.m.
UC Irvine (21-6) pulled away from Long Beach State in the fourth quarter in an 11-7 win in Friday’s second semifinal.
The Wahine rallied past the Anteaters in a 9-8 win in last year’s Big West final in San Diego and faced two of their closest tests in this season’s meetings with UCI. UH pulled out an 8-6 win in overtime in the Triton Invitational on Feb. 12 in La Jolla, Calif., and won the conference meeting 11-8 on April 8 in Irvine, Calif.
As the top seed, UH had a bye in the first round on Thursday, and got out to a hot start on Friday against a UCSD team that lost 15-6 at DKAC on Wahine senior night victory on April 1.
McDowall scored in the middle 16 seconds into the match and Bonamusa Boix added two more in quick succession to give UH a 3-0 lead.
“We had last weekend off so it had been a while since we had played, so you never know … how we’re going to come out, if we’re a little hesitant,” UH coach Maureen Cole said. “And we came out really confident and it was great to see.”
McDowall appeared on her way to a monster match when she found the net for the fourth time at the 6:51 mark of the second quarter. The Wahine were up 8-4 when UH center Elyse Lemay-Lavoie was whistled for an exclusion.
In the transition, McDowall jumped into the pool before Lemay-Lavoie ducked under the lane line, giving UH eight players and resulting in a misconduct call on McDowall that ended her match with 2:30 left in the second quarter.
“That just threw us out of rhythm and our subbing shifted early in the game,” Cole said.
UH took a 9-5 lead into halftime and went up by six when Lucia Gomez de la Puente scored 40 seconds into the third quarter and Lemay-Lavoie tapped in a putback after her shot hit the crossbar. Gomez de la Puente’s second goal of the period pushed the lead to 13-7 with 59 seconds left. UC San Diego then scored the next four goals with UH content to play it safe offensively and run down the clock.
Any lingering comeback possibilities were snuffed when Gomez de la Puente scored into an empty net to give UH a 14-11 cushion with 42 seconds left.
“Sometimes it’s smart to look at the clock and the goal difference and how much time is left and obviously if we keep the ball there’s not much they can do,” Bonamusa Boix said. “Just keeping the ball and being smart about our movement and don’t to give them easy goals that can put us at risk of losing the game.”
Kendall Thomas led UCSD (20-11) with four goals and Taylor Onstott added a hat trick.
“This was a team that never quit, and we’ve been down 3-0 to multiple teams this year and come back and won, and there we were again against the best team in the conference down 3-0,” UC San Diego coach Brad Kreutzkamp said. “And I knew deep down we would never quit.”
