The mood in the visiting locker room and on the flight home would have been much different if the final seconds of Saturday’s Hawaii women’s basketball game had gone a different way.
Cal Poly’s 3-pointer to take the lead came up short with two seconds left and Hawaii avoided blowing a 13-point lead in the final six minutes with a 63-59 victory over the Mustangs on Saturday afternoon at Mott Athletics Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Imani Perez scored a game-high 21 points on 8-for-11 shooting and Ashley Thoms rebounded the Mustangs’ final miss and made two free throws to push the Rainbow Wahine (10-8, 7-2 Big West) into a three-way tie for first place in conference play.
“It’s fun when you come on the winning side of those. Losing, and I probably wouldn’t be in this good of a mood,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said after the win. “We knew they were going to come back in that fourth quarter when we got that lead and I’m just proud of the girls for holding onto that lead.”
Perez’s layup with 5:32 to go matched Hawaii’s largest lead of the game at 52-39. Cal Poly scored nine points in the next 68 seconds, with Mary Carter’s 3-pointer cutting the deficit to 52-48.
Perez’s final points of the game on one of Daejah Phillips’ seven assists put UH back ahead by eight at 58-50 with 2:27 remaining.
Hawaii led by six inside a minute when it gave up two offensive rebounds and committed a shot-clock violation to give Cal Poly the ball, down 60-58 with 14 seconds left.
Sierra Lichtie was fouled and had two free throws to tie the game but missed the first.
Phillips went 1-for-2 from the line on the other end to make it a 61-59 game, and Annika Shah had a 3 with two seconds remaining come up short as Hawaii survived a multitude of mistakes to hold on.
“We can’t have breakdowns,” Beeman said. “It wasn’t the prettiest way to close a game, but that’s what a team like Cal Poly is going to do to you. They’re going to put pressure on you, they’re going to get you to make fouls by attacking the basket. I don’t like the fact we lost the lead, but I like the fact we didn’t lose our composure to lose the game.”
Phillips finished with 11 points and nine rebounds to go along with her season high in assists and was the main playmaker in the second half, teaming with Perez to hurt the Mustangs with their two-man game from the top of the key.
With Lily Wahinekapu and MeiLani McBee sitting in the corners waiting to take open 3s, Cal Poly stuck to them and allowed Perez to have her way in the middle.
UH had 30 points in the paint despite missing center Brooklyn Rewers for a fourth straight game.
“Daejah and Imani were phenomenal with each other,” Beeman said. “Daejah had really good tempo coming off those on-ball screens, and I thought it was really difficult for (Cal Poly) to match. That combination worked really well for us today.”
Wahinekapu added 10 points and has seven double-digit scoring outings in her past eight games.
Perez gave Hawaii its first individual 20-point scoring output of the season.
Hawaii jumped out to an 11-7 lead after the first quarter, with eight of its points coming in the paint.
The Mustangs, who shot 25% (3-for-12) from the field in the opening 10 minutes, hit five of their first six field-goal attempts of the second quarter to lead by as many as five.
Sidney Richards scored five quick points to start the second quarter and Shah splashed back-to-back 3-pointers to put Cal Poly ahead 20-15.
UH closed the quarter on a 7-2 run as Phillips converted both free throws with eight seconds remaining to send the game into the half tied at 22.
Hawaii picked it up offensively in the third quarter, nearly matching its first half total, shooting 8-for-10 from the field.
Perez had eight points in the quarter as Hawaii fed the ball inside more often. Phillips gave UH at 41-33 lead scoring on a jumper in the paint after an offensive rebound. The Mustangs made their final five shots but still trailed 41-35 heading into the fourth quarter.
