A leap year added an extra day to February, but Thursday’s Hawaii women’s basketball game had all the madness that comes with March.
Lily Wahinekapu scored five points in the final 77 seconds of overtime and Daejah Phillips iced the game with a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired with 10 seconds to go to give the Rainbow Wahine a 63-57 victory over UC Davis on Thursday night.
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 1,089 saw Hawaii survive a drought of more than nine minutes without a field goal in the second half to remain alone in first place in the Big West with a victory in its first overtime game of the season.
“Everybody for us contributed, from (Vivienne Berrett’s) three minutes all the way up,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said. “(UC Davis) is a really good team, and for us to hold Evanne Turner to eight points and zero from seven from 3, that’s a heckuva job by (Ashley Thoms) because she spent most of the night on her.”
Playing without starting forward Imani Perez, who was hurt in the final minutes of Saturday’s win at Long Beach State, UH closed the fourth quarter on a 10-2 to run to send it to OT after Turner couldn’t get an elbow jumper to drop.
Hawaii led 55-54 with 1:17 to go in overtime when Wahinekapu swished a 3-pointer from the right wing to push the lead to four.
UC Davis broke a scoring drought of more than six minutes on a Tova Sabel free throw before Wahinekapu came right back down the floor and drove for a layup to put UH ahead 60-55.
The Aggies made it a one-possession game with 44 seconds remaining before Phillips, the reigning Big West Player of the Week, swished a 3-pointer she had to force up as the shot clock was about to expire.
“I honestly was praying to the basketball gods for that shot to go in,” Phillips said.
Wahinekapu finished with a game-high 18 points and Phillips and Jacque David each had 10 off the bench for Hawaii (17-9, 14-3), which won its fourth in a row to remain a game up on UC Irvine with three to play.
UH also remained undefeated in conference play at home.
Sabel had 17 points to lead the Aggies (15-13, 11-7).
David logged a season-high 32 minutes for UH and also had seven rebounds. Brooklyn Rewers returned from an 11-game absence to help fill the void of Perez and managed to play seven minutes.
“We had talked as a staff that we needed Viv to give us a good (four minutes) and Brooklyn to give us eight or less,” Beeman said. “Jacque’s minutes were going to be determined on her conditioning and how she was continuing to play, and if we needed to go small, we were going to go small.”
Hawaii trailed 49-41 with 6:10 to go when Olivia Davies scored UH’s first field goal in more than nine minutes — a 3-pointer that made it a five-point game.
Sabel answered with a 3-pointer for the Aggies before Wahinekapu scored seven points in a 10-2 closing run in regulation after MeiLani McBee’s 3-pointer tied the game with 59 seconds remaining.
“Just trying to stay aggressive in transition,” Wahinekapu said. “Everyone was running the floor really well and it opened me up.”
UC Davis scored the first eight points as Hawaii started 0-for-5 from the field with two turnovers. Wahinekapu’s putback five minutes in accounted for UH’s first field goal and the rest of its points in the first quarter came from the bench.
Jade Peacock ended the first quarter with a 3 for UH and David started the second with one of her own to tie the game at 14-all.
Megan Morris’ 3-pointer put the Aggies up seven at 25-18 with 4:55 remaining before UH closed the half on an 11-1 run.
David connected from 3-point range for the second time during the run and Wahinekapu put UH ahead with two free throws and a driving layup to go into intermission up 29-26.
Hawaii went the final 5:29 of the third quarter without a field goal to allow the Aggies to take a 43-41 lead into the fourth quarter.
Hawaii will play its final regular season game at home on Saturday against UC Riverside.
BIG WEST WOMEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
Hawaii 14 3 .824 — 17 9
UC Irvine 13 4 .765 1 18 8
UC Riverside 11 6 .647 3 16 11
Cal Poly 11 6 .647 3 15 11
UC Davis 11 7 .611 3½ 15 13
UCSB 10 7 .588 4 16 11
UC San Diego 8 9 .471 6 12 16
Long Beach St. 7 10 .412 7 12 15
CS Fullerton 5 12 .294 9 9 18
CSU Bakersfield 5 13 .278 9½ 8 19
CS Northridge 0 18 .000 14½ 2 26
Thursday
Hawaii 63, UC Davis 57, OT
Cal Poly 73, UC Santa Barbara 64
UC Irvine 64, Cal State Northridge 54
UC San Diego 50, Cal State Bakersfield
43
Long Beach State 74, Cal State Fullerton
59
Saturday
Cal Poly at Cal State Bakersfield
CS Northridge at UC San Diego
UC Irvine at Long Beach State
Cal State Fullerton at UC Santa Barbara
UC Riverside at Hawaii, 7 p.m.
HAWAII 63, UC DAVIS 57, OT
AGGIES (15-13, 11-7)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Burns 34 3-7 0-0 2 1 0 8
Sabel 41 7-17 2-5 9 2 4 17
Turner 43 3-14 2-2 4 4 0 8
Norris 34 5-11 1-4 10 2 3 14
Harris 39 1-3 0-0 8 1 1 2
Gray 5 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Epps 10 1-4 0-0 3 0 0 2
Baker 8 2-5 2-2 1 1 2 6
Shine 11 0-2 0-0 3 0 1 0
TEAM 5
TOTALS 225 22-63 7-13 45 11 11 57
RAINBOW WAHINE (17-9, 14-3)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Thoms 35 2-2 0-0 1 0 0 5
Wahinekapu 39 7-15 2-2 4 2 1 18
Rewers 7 1-5 0-0 1 0 1 2
McBee 27 1-6 1-2 6 0 3 4
Davies 19 2-5 0-0 2 2 1 5
Imai 14 2-5 2-2 3 1 1 6
Berrett 3 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Phillips 32 3-7 3-6 7 2 3 10
Peacock 17 1-3 0-0 1 0 0 3
David 33 3-12 2-2 4 0 2 10
TEAM 10
TOTALS 225 22-60 10-14 39 7 12 63
Key — min: minutes played; fg-a: field goals
made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; r: rebounds; a: assists; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points.
Score By Period
UC Davis 14 12 17 11 3 – 57
Hawaii 11 18 12 13 9 – 63
3-point goals — UC Davis 6-30 (Norris
3-7, Burns 2-4, Sabel 1-5, Baker 0-1, Epps
0-2, Harris 0-2, Shine 0-2, Turner 0-7). Hawaii 9-26 (Wahinekapu 2-4, David 2-7, Phillips 1-1, Thoms 1-1, Peacock 1-2, Davies
1-3, McBee 1-5, Rewers 0-1, Imai 0-2).
Steals — UC Davis 2 (Baker, Norris). Hawaii 5 (Imai 2, David, McBee, Phillips).
Blocked shots — UC Davis 6 (Sabel 3,
Norris 2, Harris). Hawaii 3 (McBee 2, Phillips). Turnovers — UC Davis 12 (Turner 3,
Norris 2, Sabel 2, Shine 2, Baker, Epps,
Team). Hawaii 9 (David 3, Davies, McBee,
Peacock, Phillips, Team, Thoms). Technical fouls — none. Officials — Anita Ortega, Stacie Blow, Starr Rivera. A — 1,852.
