Rainbow Wahine basketball wins at UC Irvine

Sophomore forward Imani Perez scored a career-high 17 points shooting a perfect 7-for-7 from the field to lead the Hawaii women’s basketball team to a 56-49 win over UC Irvine today at Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif.

Perez added nine rebounds and two blocks and Lily Wahinekapu finished with 10 points, five rebounds and four assists to help the Rainbow Wahine (7-6, 4-0 Big West) hand the Anteaters (9-6, 3-2) their first home loss of the season.

UC Irvine, which beat Hawaii twice in the regular season last season, had won 21 of its last 23 home games coming in.

The Rainbow Wahine fell behind 14-9 at the end of the first quarter and then outplayed UC Irvine the rest of the way.

UH led 34-32 in the third quarter when MeiLani McBee made two 3’s in 26 seconds. She was fouled on the second one and made the free throw to push the UH advantage to 41-32.

McBee’s third 3-pointer of the game with 3:37 remaining matched Hawaii’s largest lead at 54-43.

Hawaii has won four in a row and held every opponent to less than 50 points during that run.

UC Irvine shot 12.5 percent (3-for-24) from the 3-point line and was out rebounded 38-36.

Hawaii will close the week with a game at UC Riverside on Saturday.