HONOLULU — The Hawaii women’s basketball team overcame a poor shooting night and a 13-point second-half deficit to defeat Fresno State, 50-47, on Day 1 of the American Savings Bank Rainbow Wahine Showdown at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday.
UH (4-1) is off to its best five-game start since 2017-18.
In the first game of the four-team tournament, No. 1 UCLA dismantled Tennessee-Martin, 97-37. UH faces UTM (1-5) of the Ohio Valley Conference at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, following UCLA (6-0) against Fresno State (5-2) at noon.
The Wahine take on UCLA on Sunday to cap the tournament. The Bruins knocked off previous No. 1 and defending national champion South Carolina coming into the week.
"As much as you want to play the No. 1 team in the country, you want to get the wins before the No. 1 team in the country," UH coach Laura Beeman said. "Then when we play UCLA, we’ll need to play a lot better than we did today, and I think we will."
Freshman center Ritorya Tamilo scored a season-high 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds to lead UH in front of 658 people (1,658 tickets issued). Point guard Lily Wahinekapu scored 12 and Daejah Phillips had eight points and six assists.
In one of Friday’s key sequences, Wahinekapu drove in for a layup, stole FSU’s inbounds pass and put in another shot from underneath the basket for a six-point Rainbow Wahine lead over the Mountain West team with 3:35 to play.
Tamilo completed a layup on pick and roll with Daejah Phillips to maintain that margin with 1:48 to go.
The Bulldogs’ Mariah Elohim hit a 3-pointer and FSU capitalized on a turnover by Imani Perez with two free throws by Mia Jacobs to get within a point.
FSU took a foul and Wahinekapu made a free throw before the officiating crew realized the Bulldogs had only committed four team fouls, not five. They wiped off the point and had UH inbound the ball.
Wahinekapu got fouled again with 10.4 seconds left and this time she made both free throws for a three-point lead.
"Only time I’ve seen it is in the NFL on a field-goal attempt," Beeman said. "Don’t know if I’ve ever seen it in basketball. Obviously the communication between the officials and the (scorer's) table needs to be a little bit quicker. But I think it what it did for Lily was give her confidence, because the free throw she shot before that was great."
The senior said she went through her mental free-throw checklist that includes elevating her elbow and keeping her goes firmly planted on the ground.
Jacobs got a clean look at a straightaway 3-pointer to tie but her shot caromed off the rim and UH held on for its 14th straight home win dating to last season.
Both teams struggled to put the ball in the basket for most of the first quarter, and it never got much better. FSU shot 27.6% and UH 31.7%.
The Wahine trailed 28-20 at halftime and gave up five quick points to begin the third quarter but had rallied to within a point by the fourth. They gradually dialed up some fullcourt pressure over the course of the second half to help turn the tide.
"We couldn’t find things offensively, so we had to up our intensity on defense," Wahinekapu said. "We were able to get some scoring off of (that)."
UH blocked 10 shots, with the 6-foot-5 Tamilo swatting three. Brooklyn Rewers came off the bench to block three more in 11 minutes. Imani Perez had two and Jade Peacock two.
"All of us bigs, even Jade and BK (Rewers), we did a good job of just not fouling and our length comes in handy, definitely," Tamilo said.
Jacobs led FSU with 14 points while shooting just 3-for-16, but also grabbed 18 rebounds.
Beeman narrowed her rotation to nine for the game, whereas she'd played as many as 12 or 13 through the first four games. She said afterward that she didn't want to shatter confidence for her freshmen against FSU's alternating defenses. Guard Jovi Lefotu missed her first game of the season for unstated reasons.
Note: This story was updated with details and quotes.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.