The Hawaii women’s basketball team will try to use several days of holiday break time to recover from a difficult December stretch.

UH came up short against San Diego State, 54-52, in the San Diego Invitational at Viejas Arena on Saturday when the Rainbow Wahine could not come up with a tying or winning basket in the final seconds.

SDSU guard Victoria Sheffey had the go-ahead basket on a drive with 8.9 seconds left. On a drawn-up play coming out of the ensuing timeout, MeiLani McBee had an open 3-point shot from the left corner for the win. When her attempt caromed off the front of the rim, center Ritorya Tamilo snared the offensive rebound, pivoted, and tried to go back up with it at the buzzer. It might’ve been a fraction of a second late and rimmed off.

“That’s the look you want,” coach Laura Beeman said in a postgame phone interview with Spectrum News. “Alex (associate head coach Delanian) drew up a great play, something that we work on, (McBee) had a great look and Tori had an offensive board. I thought she was fouled on her putback."

The tight loss, a day after UH (6-5) fell to Clemson by 14 and after it held an eight-point second-half lead Saturday, was the latest stinging setback in a 1-4 December. The game UH won over that stretch, at home against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Monday, included injuries to guards Kelsie Imai and Jovi Lefotu, both of whom missed both games of the six-team San Diego tournament.

The Wahine will now disperse over the Christmas holiday and reconvene in Santa Barbara, Calif., for Big West play on Dec. 27. They face the Gauchos on Jan. 2.

“We gotta get rest and we gotta get healthy,” Beeman said. “You know, Jovi, Kelsie, Dani (Kujovic) all help us a lot these last two games (if they were available) and we had to drive some kids into the ground. That’s not what you want to do.

“We need to rest, eat some good food, be with family, take a breather, forget about basketball for a couple days until we regroup on the 27^th.”

It was Jade Peacock’s turn to get a starting nod for UH, but neither team had a member of its starting five score in double figures. UH closed the first half with a 16-4 run to take a 30-25 lead at intermission as backup center Brooklyn Rewers scored all 10 of her points before the break.

Guard Daejah Phillips came off the bench to score a team-high 11 points. Her jumper at the start of the fourth quarter made it a six-point game.

Aztecs freshman guard Naomi Panganiban and Kim Villalobos got shots to fall after the ball danced on the rim and Panganiban followed with a swished 3-pointer to give the Aztecs a 45-44 lead.

Lily Wahinekapu gave her team its last lead on a pair of free throws with 5:37 left and the UH point guard hit a 3 to tie it at 49.

SDSU built a three-point lead on free throws and Wahine forward Imani Perez tied it up for the last time at 52 with a three-point play on UH’s penultimate possession with 37 seconds left.

The Mountain West team called timeout and UH defended well for nearly the entire shot clock before Sheffey found an open lane right to the basket off a high post ball screen.

“I don’t think (Perez) had a doubt in the world she was going to make that free throw,” Beeman said. “At that point, we just need to go down on the other end and make a stop. We put ourselves in position to switch off on that drive down the middle and we didn’t switch it and (Sheffey) walked to the basket with two seconds left on the clock.”

SDSU (11-2) prevailed despite being held to 33.3% shooting to UH’s 45.2%. The Aztecs committed six fewer turnovers and attempted 15 more shots thanks to a 13-4 disparity in offensive rebounds.

Panganiban put in a game-high 24 points on 9-for-18 shooting. It was the San Diego native’s most against a Division I opponent and was the second-highest total UH has allowed for a player this season. Jakayla Johnson of Louisiana-Monroe had 25.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.