by LAIE, Hawaii – Valerie Nawahine’s double-double led BYU-Hawaii women’s basketball to an 85-63 victory over Chaminade in the Cannon Activities Center on Saturday night.
Four Seasiders (4-4, 1-2 PacWest) scored in double digits to give the team their highest scoring game this season. Nawahine led with 15 points and 10 rebounds while going 100 percent from the free-throw line. Jiashan Cui also contributed 15 and Kjirsten Nelson added 13. Celeste Claw (Navajo Nation) finished with 12 points, eight assists and six rebounds.
Lilia Maio led the Silverswords (3-5, 3-1 PacWest) with a game-high 17 points to go with nine rebounds and three assists. Courtney Kaupu added 12 points and four assists.
BYU-Hawaii outrebounded Chaminade 52-46 and had 14 steals to their 6. Both teams had 29 fouls, resulting in a combined 43 points on free throws. BYU-Hawaii shot 37 percent from the field, holding Chaminade to 33.3 percent.
After trailing for most of the first half, the Seasiders began the third quarter with a 7-point run on mainly free throws to close the gap to 40-39 with seven minutes on the clock. BYU-Hawaii took the 42-41 lead on a 3-point jumper by Claw with 5:39 remaining. With the game tied at 46-46 the Seasiders’ 15-0 run that ended with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by K. Nelson to take the lead for good at 61-46 heading into the final quarter of play.
The Seasiders built an early 13-11 lead in the first on an 8-2 run with two 3-pointers by Cui, but the Silverswords answered with a 12-point run to take a double-digit advantage with 1:56 in the first quarter. BYU-Hawaii attempted to fight back with four straight points, but a buzzer-beating jump shot by Maio made it a 25-17 game headed to the second.
The Silverswords led by as many as 13 in the second as the teams traded baskets and runs. BYU-Hawaii used two 5-0 runs to head into the locker room trailing 40-32.
Nawahine led a 10-3 Seasider run in the fourth quarter with five points to push the lead to 24-point at 76-52 with 5:38 left. Four consecutive points by Taylor Jackson made it 82-57 and gave BYU-Hawaii its largest lead of the game with 2:03 on the clock.
The Seasiders will play Penn in a nonconference game on New Year’s Eve at 2 p.m. HST. Live stats and video will be available online.
