Perhaps the rainy weather energized Hawaii’s duo from the Pacific Northwest.
Two nights after the Rainbow Wahine basketball team endured an icy shooting performance, forward Kallin Spiller and guard Meilani McBee — both from Washington state — sparked UH’s most productive night of the season in an 80-58 rout of Cal Poly on Saturday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
Spiller led five UH players in double figures with 19 points on 9-for-11 shooting and the Rainbow Wahine (9-12, 7-5 Big West) built a 20-point lead less than six minutes into the game on their way to earning a yet another bounce-back win and a split of their homestand before a crowd of 933.
McBee hit four 3-pointers in the first half — three coming in UH’s 24-4 downpour to open the game — and contributed 13 points to the team’s highest point total of the season.
UH shot 25% from the field and went 2-for-23 from 3-point range in a 57-47 loss to UC Davis on Thursday but nearly matched that point total in the first half against Cal Poly in building a 46-26 lead going into the break.
The Wahine finished the night at 54.7% from the field, their second highest percentage of the season, drained nine 3-pointers, and tied a season high with 22 assists in what coach Laura Beeman assessed as their most complete performance to date.
“I just felt like it was a really good team win — 22 assists on 53 shots is pretty amazing,” Beeman said. “It just tells you what we can do when we push the ball a little, have some tempo, share the ball, play some good defense. I think some eyes opened up tonight.”
The eye-opening numbers capped a trying week for the Wahine, who lost two players to season-ending injuries in the days leading up to Thursday’s loss to UC Davis.
After missing their first shot on Saturday, the Wahine connected on their next nine, starting with a Lily Wahinekapu 3-pointer 46 seconds into the game. They leaned on Spiller to answer a 10-2 Cal Poly surge to open the second quarter and led by as many as 32 in the third quarter.
After Cal Poly closed to 31-23 to force a UH timeout at the 5:51 mark of the second quarter, Spiller went on a personal six-point run in the post to trigger a 15-0 Wahine outburst.
“At that moment it’s really about weathering those storms,” Spiller said. “We know teams are going to make runs, they’re going to push us. So coming out of that timeout, it was doing what we need to do and play together to stop that run.”
The graduate student put together a bounce-back performance of her own after going 2-for-15 from the field while scoring just five points over UH’s previous two games. She responded by setting a career high with nine made field goals, all from close range, on Saturday.
“I’ve been trying to grow my game as an outside shooter, so I really wanted to focus today on giving everything I had in the paint,” Spiller said. “I knew if I was working as hard as I could on rolls, on post-ups, then maybe that was going to be my opportunity to score, but it’s also going to open up my shooters on the outside.”
UH avoided a third-quarter letdown and completed the sweep of the season series with the Mustangs. The Wahine extended their trend of alternating wins and losses for 11 straight games dating back to a 50-47 win at Cal Poly on Dec. 31.
“Teams can get leads. It’s sustaining the lead, and that’s what I’m most proud about,” Beeman said.
Wahinekapu had 10 points in her seventh straight double-digit scoring night and dished out seven assists. Guard Daejah Phillips added 12 off the bench and guard McKenna Haire contributed 11 points in her second start of the season.
Spiller led the team with seven rebounds and guard Kelsie Imai finished with seven points on 3-for-4 shooting, six rebounds and five assists.
Oumou Toure led Cal Poly (6-14, 3-9) with 14 points and ‘Iolani graduate Taylor Wu hit two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to finish with nine points.
UH heads on the road next week for games at UC San Diego (11-11, 8-4) on Thursday and at Cal State Fullerton (10-12, 5-8) on Saturday.