Rainbow Wahine bench provides spark in win over Fullerton

The Hawaii women’s basketball team can enter the new year feeling good about its start to the Big West Conference season.

The Rainbow Wahine closed out a 59-49 victory over Cal State Fullerton on Saturday with tough defense and clutch shooting to win its third straight conference opener at Titan Gym in Fullerton, Calif.

Ashley Thoms and Kelsie Imai sparked Hawaii off the bench, with Thoms draining a career-high four 3-pointers for a team-high 12 points and Imai adding nine points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals.

UH (4-6, 1-0) had a 25-4 advantage in bench scoring to earn its ninth consecutive win over the Titans (5-7, 1-1).

“(Thoms) and Kelsie stepped up so much,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said. “I thought those two were pretty impressive today. Kelsie gave us a lift with some juice and we needed it.”

Imani Perez had eight points and nine rebounds after missing UH’s previous game against UCLA.

Lily Wahinekapu’s layup in the closing seconds of the first half gave Hawaii its biggest lead at 33-19 at intermission.

The Titans opened the second half on a 10-0 run that included seven points in the first 2:02, prompting Beeman to call a quick timeout.

Cal State Fullerton got within two points twice in the third quarter but never managed to take the lead.

“We needed to get back to playing our basketball,” Beeman said. “I think we came out (in the second half) a little flat. We lost a little intensity and it showed in everything we did. When you get into conference, you’ve got to play for 40 minutes. Obviously they are coming to get us with where we are picked in the conference.”

UH outscored the Titans 12-7 in the fourth quarter as it held Cal State Fullerton without a point for nearly seven minutes.

A Jade Peacock layup capped a 7-0 run to push Hawaii’s lead to 54-42 before Ashlee Lewis scored in the post to end the Titans’ scoring drought with 3:08 remaining.

Hawaii outrebounded a team for the first time this season with a 42-33 edge on the boards. UH shot 40% (8-for-20) from 3.

“That was part of the game plan. We had to keep them off the boards — and I thought the girls did a good job,” Beeman said. “We still need to improve drastically on our rebounding, but today was a good step.”

Cal State Fullerton’s only lead came to start the game when UH went more than four minutes without scoring.

Imai came off the bench to score UH’s first basket and then pushed the pace on a fast break and hit MeiLani McBee for the first of her three 3-pointers to put UH ahead 5-4.

Imai found Thoms for her first 3-pointer after securing an offensive rebound and Thoms hit her second 3-pointer with 2:26 to go to cap a 13-0 Hawaii run.

Hawaii opened the second quarter on a 9-2 run run to build the lead to 22-8.

Imai, whose four steals was a career high, hadn’t recorded a steal in UH’s first nine games.

Thoms made one more 3-pointer than she had all season coming in.

Fujika Nimmo made five 3s and scored a game-high 17 points and Lewis added 11 points and 14 rebounds to lead the Titans.

The Rainbow Wahine played without second-leading scorer Daejah Phillips, who missed her first game of the season.

Hawaii returns home for games against Cal State Bakersfield and Cal State Northridge next week.