Rainbow Wahine fall short at Santa Clara

A Hawaii women’s basketball team accustomed to dealing with injuries is already at it again.

Playing without junior Lily Wahinekapu, the Rainbow Wahine fell behind early and couldn’t quite make it all the way back in a 62-51 loss to Santa Clara on Saturday at the Leavey Center in Santa Clara, Calif.

Tess Heal led three Broncos in double figures with 16 points and Santa Clara took advantage of 22 Hawaii turnovers to win its home opener and improve to 2-1 after the first week of the season.

Brooklyn Rewers had 19 points and 12 rebounds off the bench to lead the Rainbow Wahine (0-2), who fell behind 24-10 in the first quarter.

Daejah Philips, who along with Wahinehkapu are the top two returning scorers from a season ago, was limited to nine minutes due to foul trouble and eventually fouled out.

“Without Lily and without Daejah most of the game due to foul trouble was tough,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said. “With not having a lot of depth, we need to get healthy and we’ve got to stay healthy.”

Beeman couldn’t comment on Wahinekapu’s status, but the team clearly missed her in the first quarter.

UH turned the ball over nine times and got off just nine field-goal attempts in the opening 10 minutes.

Hawaii outscored the Broncos the rest of the way but couldn’t get even on the scoreboard. UH got within five twice in the fourth quarter, but both times Santa Clara answered with a 3-pointer on its next possession.

Hawaii held Santa Clara to just six points in the second quarter to get within six at halftime at 30-24.

“We just kind of took a deep breath,” Beeman said. “We got back to doing what we needed to do to chip away at the score.”

Rewers, who transferred from Michigan State prior to the season, got the start in Hawaii’s opener at Stanford but came off the bench on Saturday.

She shot 6-for-11 from the field and 6-for-8 from the free-throw line and helped UH stay close in the rebounding battle after getting hammered on the boards against the Cardinal.

“I thought Brooklyn Rewers had a very good game with a double-double,” Beeman said. “She kind of controlled the inside, and once we stopped turning the ball over and once we were able to get into an offense, she came up big.”

Hawaii trailed by eight entering the fourth quarter and pulled within five points twice on 3-pointers by MeiLani McBee, who finished with 16 points and was 4-for-5 from behind the arc.

Both times, Santa Clara drilled 3s to answer with Oilvia Pollerd putting the Broncos up 55-47 with 3:18 to go.

Ashley Hiraki’s layup stretched the lead to 10 with 2:29 remaining and Pollerd’s putback with 54 seconds left made it a 12-point game.

Up next for the Rainbow Wahine is their home opener on Friday against San Francisco.