The Hawaii women’s basketball team played the opening 10 minutes Thursday at UC Riverside like a team that had won 14 games in a row.

The next three quarters brought back memories of a regular-season champion bounced in the semifinals of the Big West Conference Championships a year ago.

League-leading Hawaii was held to 31 points over the final three quarters and saw its longest winning streak in a decade end in a 61-51 loss to UC Riverside at SRC Arena in Riverside, Calif.

Hannah Wickstrom scored a game-high 18 points to lead three players in double figures for the Highlanders (14-14, 10-8), who secured a bid into the BWC Tournament with the victory.

Imani Perez had a team-high 12 points on a career-high four 3-pointers to go along with four assists, four rebounds, three blocks and two steals for the Rainbow Wahine (20-7, 14-3), who remain in first place in the conference and control their own destiny for the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament despite the loss.

Lily Wahinekapu added 10 points and six rebounds and had six of her points in the first quarter for UH, which led 20-9 after the opening 10 minutes.

Hawaii was outscored 52-31 the rest of the way.

“I think they upped their defensive intensity in the second quarter and we struggled moving the ball,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said in a postgame Zoom call. “Between the pressure that they applied to us defensively, and for whatever reason we just got really quiet on the basketball court, and that’s not like us. Just a weird game for us tonight.”

Shelley Duchemin added 14 points and Makayla Rose chipped in 11 for the Highlanders, who have won four of five and beat UH at home for the second straight season.

Mia ‘Uhila’s basket on the fastbreak with seconds remaining capped an impressive first quarter for the Rainbow Wahine, who made nine of 14 shots to take an 11-point lead.

Wahinekapu had six points and three rebounds and Perez connected on two 3-pointers. Her first capped a 9-0 run to start the game and prompt a quick timeout from the Highlanders, who entered the game seventh in the Big West.

UC Riverside was awarded two free throws before the start of the second quarter on an administrative technical foul called on UH.

Duchemin followed with a pull-up jumper off a UH turnover and then hit a 3 as part of an 8-0 run to cut Hawaii’s lead to 20-17.

Perez ended the Highlanders’ scoring run with an assist to Ritorya Tamilo off a back cut for a layup for UH’s first points four minutes into the second quarter.

UC Riverside continued its run and took its first lead of the game on a Maya Chocano 3 late in the shot clock that gave the Highlanders a 26-24 lead with 1:01 remaining.

Kelsie Imai answered with a driving layup to allow UH to go into the half tied at 26-all after it was outscored 17-6 beginning with the technical free throws.

“When we got that administrative technical foul for the wrong number in the book, that really just kind of took the air out of our sails,” Beeman said. “It’s interesting that something seemingly so trivial affected us, but since that moment I think they outscored us 52-31. Defensively we didn’t communicate and didn’t come together.”

UC Riverside outscored Hawaii by four points to take the lead in the third quarter, and Dunchemin and Wickstrom started the fourth quarter with 3-pointers to push the lead to double figures.

UH never got closer than six the rest of the way.

Eleven of Hawaii’s 16 shots attempted in the fourth quarter were from behind the 3-point line. UH shot 26.7% (6-for-23) from behind the arc from the game and was 3-for-6 from the free-throw line. All six attempts came in the fourth quarter.

“We had a bad game,” Beeman said. “I’d rather have a bad game now than a bad game later. One game, one possession, unless it’s the last game, it doesn’t define who we are as a group. We will see how we come back on Saturday.”

Post players Tamilo and Brooklyn Rewers combined for four points on 2-for-8 shooting with two rebounds in 30 minutes.

Hawaii will play its final road game of the regular season on Saturday at UC Davis at noon.

BIG WEST WOMEN

Conference Overall

W L Pct. GB W L

Hawaii 14 3 .824 — 20 7

UC Irvine 13 4 .765 1 19 8

UC Davis 11 6 .647 3 17 10

UC San Diego 11 6 .647 3 15 14

UCSB 11 7 .611 31

⁄2 17 11

Long Beach St. 10 7 .588 4 14 12

UC Riverside 10 8 .556 41

⁄2 14 14

Cal Poly 6 11 .353 8 11 16

CS Fullerton 5 12 .294 9 7 20

CS Northridge 2 15 .118 12 4 22

CSU Bakersfield 2 16 .111 121

⁄2 2 26

Thursday

UC Riverside 61, Hawaii 51

UC Irvine 62, Cal State Fullerton 34

UC Santa Barbara 63, Cal Poly 60

Long Beach State 82, CS Bakersfield 70

UC San Diego 78, Cal State Northridge 64

Saturday

Hawaii at UC Davis, noon

UC Irvine at Long Beach State

UC San Diego at Cal State Fullerton

Cal Poly at Cal State Bakersfield

Cal State Northridge at UC Santa Barbara

UC RIVERSIDE 61, HAWAII 51

RAINBOW WAHINE (20-7, 14-3 Big West)

NO. PLAYER MIN FG-A 3PT FT-A O-DREB TREB PF A TO BLK STL PTS

12 Perez 32 4-7 4-5 0-2 1-3 4 0 4 2 3 2 12

3 Wahinekapu 36 5-11 0-3 0-0 3-4 7 3 1 0 0 1 10

1 Imai 28 4-8 0-0 1-2 1-3 4 3 1 2 0 0 9

24 Tamilo 16 2-3 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 0 3 0 1 0 4

23 McBee 20 1-3 1-3 0-0 0-3 3 0 1 1 1 1 3

2 ‘Uhila 20 2-5 1-3 2-2 0-3 3 0 2 2 0 0 7

4 Lefotu 17 2-7 0-2 0-0 1-2 3 2 0 3 0 0 4

22 Peacock 9 1-3 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2

14 Rewers 13 0-5 0-3 0-0 0-1 1 0 1 3 0 1 0

8 Moors 5 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

11 Filemu 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 1-1 2 1 1 1 0 1 0

TEAM 0 0-0 0-0 0-0 2-3 5 0 0 1 0 0 0

Totals 200 21-53 6-23 3-6 9-24 33 9 14 15 5 6 51

Percentages 39.6 26.1 50.0

HIGHLANDERS (14-14, 10-8 Big West)

NO. PLAYER MIN FG-A 3PT FT-A O-DREB TREB PF A TO BLK STL PTS

05 Duchemin 30 6-13 1-4 1-2 0-4 4 1 3 5 0 5 14

00 Rose 34 3-7 0-2 5-6 0-1 1 1 3 0 0 1 11

02 Hackley 18 2-4 1-2 0-0 0-2 2 0 2 1 0 1 5

01 Polk 20 1-4 1-3 0-0 1-3 4 1 4 2 0 1 3

12 Cutler 10 0-2 0-0 0-0 1-0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

07 Wickstrom 28 7-11 2-4 2-2 0-5 5 1 1 1 0 1 18

11 Matarranz 30 3-7 1-1 0-0 2-5 7 1 3 0 1 1 7

13 Chocano 10 1-3 1-3 0-0 0-1 1 0 1 0 0 0 3

04 Marshall 11 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 2 1 0 0 0 0

03 Tillery 9 0-2 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0

TEAM 0 0-0 0-0 0-0 3-0 3 0 0 1 0 0 0

Totals 200 23-54 7-22 8-10 7-22 29 8 20 10 1 10 61

Percentages 42.6 31.8 80.0

Score By Period

Hawaii 20 6 10 15 – 51

UC Riverside 9 17 14 21 – 61

Technical fouls — none. Officials — Mjumbe Williams, Felecity Willis, Richard Waters.

A — 237.