RIVERSIDE, Calif. — For all the firsts in Hawai'i's 63-58 season-opening basketball win over UC Riverside yesterday, what mattered most to the Rainbow Wahine was the happy ending.

In head coach Dana Takahara-Dias' debut, before a cozy crowd of 168 at UCR's Student Recreation Center, the Rainbows ran after Riverside (1-2) most of the game. They finally chased the Highlanders down with a scintillating final six minutes.

"I cannot tell you how proud we are of the Rainbow Wahine basketball team tonight," said Takahara, whose only previous head coaching experience was for Moanalua High School — nearly a decade ago — and Team Aloha. "They really, really believed in themselves. They poured it on when they needed to and they played with heart."

The Rainbows won a road opener for the first time in history, after seven failures. This one was special for many reasons, most notably for the players and coaches. After a winter of discontent, this was cathartic in almost every way.

Hawai'i, trailing by as many as 12 in the first half, caught UCR for the first time at 43, when walk-on Mai Ayabe dribbled right by the defense. The Highlanders scored the next five, but that would be their last gasp.

The Rainbows had seized control and knew it — no small feat for a team that won just eight games in the acrimonious 2008-09 season that saw their coach suspended then fired.

They kept coming and the Highlanders, who suited up just nine and had three players go at least 30 minutes, got gassed. They scored just 20 points in the second half and barely shot 20 percent.

Breanna Arbuckle's six straight points gave Hawai'i its first lead in many months, at 57-56 with 2:33 to go.

"Down the stretch they are making plays and we're not," said UCR's John Margaritis, the 2007 Big West Coach of the Year. "I felt like if we could make a play it could bail us out because we led the whole game until 2:33. But as it came down to the end, the options were just not there."

Hawai'i had taken them all away. Arbuckle leaped at a driving Highlander on the next possession, altering her layup. UH got the rebound and Keisha Kanekoa, with nowhere to go and the shot clock running out, hit a jumper from the top of the key with a defender draped over her.

It was 59-56 with 1:30 left and these 'Bows, in the midst of nine straight points, knew how to close.

They outscored UCR 16-6 in the final 6:12, with Kanekoa, Arbuckle and Shawna Kuehu — playing her first official game since Feb. 22, 2008 — hitting free throws in the final minute to ice it.

"Obviously down the stretch they made very good decisions and played very tight and united," Takahara said. "On this given night I'm very, very happy because they played their hearts out."

Not every decision was good. The thrill of rare victory got the Rainbows so riled up that when Kuehu blocked a 3-point attempt in the final 10 seconds — with both hands — she celebrated with a defiant "no way" gesture that drew a technical.

"I was excited because there were nine seconds left and we were trying so hard on defense," Kuehu said. "I was just so happy I got it. I let my emotions get the best of me on that. But it's a learning experience. I'm glad it happened now rather than the middle of the WAC season, or a situation where we end up losing."

Her action was understandable for a team that had been through so much. It also could have been indefensible, giving UCR its only shot at overcoming a six-point advantage at that stage.

But no one panicked. Hawai'i had this one and it felt remarkably good after all it went through last season.

Kuehu had 10 points, four rebounds and three assists in her first game since a legendary Punahou career. Dita Liepkalne, the only returnee to start every game last season, had a game-high 12 points in her first action since a four-month layoff following surgery on both knees. Neither started.

Kanekoa, the only starter who averaged more than nine minutes last year, collected 10 points and four assists. Katie Wilson grabbed 11 rebounds in 14 minutes.

Takahara just kept bringing in fresh faces — nine played at least 10 minutes — to frustrate an increasingly weary UCR, which was stumbling and gasping at the end. It was a study in futility when it mattered most.

"A lot of it just comes down to heart," said Tre'Shonti Nottingham, Riverside's only freshman starter, who played all 40 minutes. "A lot of our girls the Hawai'i team was more letting go and we were just quiet. I think if we would have come out aggressive on our homecourt it would have been a whole different game. It's up to the leaders to tell us let's go, let's bring it, and we were just dead. That's not going to be OK."

The Highlanders started four upperclassmen thanks to a handful of redshirts.

The UH road trip continues tomorrow at UCLA and Saturday at Cal State Bakersfield. Both games begin at 5 p.m. Hawai'i time.