Starting the season strong is a goal the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team has talked a lot about this preseason.
It was nearly impossible to start Wednesday’s exhibition game against Hawaii Hilo any stronger as the two-time defending Big West championships scored 22 of the first 24 points in the first eight minutes en route to a 67-39 victory.
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 610 didn’t have to wait long to figure out the game would never be in doubt.
It took more than two minutes for Hawaii to make a shot. Once it did, it made nine of its next 10 to take a 22-2 lead and it was over from there, albeit not as impressively as the opening 10 minutes.
“First quarter was great on both sides on the ball and I thought quarters two, three, four really slipped,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said. “I thought we played really fun basketball in the first quarter and I don’t know if it was a lack of intensity the rest of the game but we have to fix that.”
Vivienne Berrett, a 6-foot-4 freshman from Washington state, led Hawaii with 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting in 13 minutes off the bench.
Meilani McBee made three 3s and added 10 points and junior guard Lily Wahinekapu had eight points and four assists in 20 minutes as 11 players got into the game and nine recorded at least 15 minutes.
Hawaii outscored the Vulcans 44-34 over the final three quarters, which was one of the main points of emphasis Beeman laid out entering the game.
“Winning is hard and if you want to win at a high level, then you don’t look at 22-5,” Beeman said of the first quarter score. “If you want to look at the scoreboard and say, ‘oh, we’re up,’ and you want to drop that intensity down there will be a team that will punch you in the mouth really quick. I didn’t see four quarters of basketball tonight. That’s what I said I wanted to see.”
UH has caught fire at the end of the last two seasons to earn consecutive NCAA Tournament berths for the first time since 1989-90.
UH showed that same form for a stretch of 5 minutes in which Michigan State transfer Brooklyn Rewers bookended a 22-0 run with layups as UH scored on nine consecutive possessions.
Guard Olivia Davies, who had her season last year cut short due to a knee injury suffered in the first game of 2023, came off the bench and hit a 3 12 seconds into her season debut.
Davies hit another 3 on UH’s next possession to continue the run.
“It was awesome. Kind of knocked the dust off of everything,” Davies said.
Hawaii’s only miss over the stretch was rebounded by Daejah Phillips, who then hit a short jumper in the key.
Wahinekapu started the scoring in the second quarter with a 3-pointer and Berrett gave UH’s its largest lead of the first half at 22 with a layup to make it 27-5.
The Vulcans hung tight the rest of the half allowing just nine shot attempts by Hawaii in the entire second quarter.
UH Hilo had just one made field goal until Melanie Hiu nailed a 3 with 5:51 to go in the second quarter. UH held the Vulcans to 23.8-percent shooting (5-for-21) to build a 37-17 halftime lead. Imani Perez scored five of her nine points in the third quarter and a Phillips layup with nine seconds left allowed UH to double-up UH Hilo’s score at 56-28.
Berrett converted a fast-break layup with 55 seconds remaining for UH’s largest lead at 65-36.
Kamehameha alumna Noelle Sua-Godinet led the Vulcans with nine points, four rebounds and two assists.
UH will open the regular season on the road on Wednesday at Stanford, ranked No. 15 in the Associated Press preseason Top 25.
