After the ASU women’s basketball team’s first loss of the season to Xavier, a trip to paradise may have been exactly what it needed to bounce back.

The Sun Devils swept through their two opponents in the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu, beating host Hawaii 65-53 on Friday and East Tennessee State 80-67 on Saturday to win the tournament.

Those two victories earned the Sun Devils a day off on the beach following four straight games on the road that took ASU from the East Coast at Yale to the Islands in less than two weeks.

“They deserve [a day off], my coaches and my team,” ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said during her postgame radio interview.

In the first game of the weekend, a jumper by UH junior guard Keisha Kaneoka gave the Wahine an early 4-3 lead, but then a 3-pointer by ASU senior guard Gabby Fage sparked a 9-0 by the Sun Devils, and ASU never relinquished the advantage again.

Senior forward Kayli Murphy gave ASU its largest lead of the first half at 29-17 at the 3:26 mark, and an 8-0 run to start the second half gave the Sun Devils a comfortable 40-22 cushion.

ASU reached its largest lead of the game of 21 points when a jumper in the paint by sophomore center Kali Bennett made the score 49-28 with 12:11 remaining, and UH got no closer than 11 points in the second half.

Bennett finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds to notch the first double-double of her ASU career, while senior guard Danielle Orsillo also scored 15 and chipped in five rebounds.

The Sun Devils outrebounded the Wahine 46-33 and also forced 27 UH (1-3) turnovers.

Things weren’t quite as easy against ETSU on Saturday.

The Sun Devils (4-1) built a 37-26 lead with 3:48 to go in the first half, but the Lady Bucs (1-3) later closed the half on an 11-2 run and trailed just 41-37 at the break.

ETSU then grabbed its first lead of the game at 42-41 under a minute into the second half and held a 52-44 advantage with 15:45 to play, but a pair of free throws by ASU sophomore wing Kimberly Brandon capped a 9-0 run to put the Sun Devils back up 53-52, and ASU never trailed again.

“Obviously, we’d like to be able to get a lead and keep it,” Turner Thorne said. “I do think we showed some great toughness today [and] some resiliency. It’s always good in the [nonconference season] to have to battle back from being down on the road, and I think that’s what you take out of a game like this.”

The Lady Bucs later cut ASU’s lead to 64-62 on a free throw by junior guard Tarita Gordon, but back-to-back 3-pointers from Orsillo and Bennett stretched the Sun Devil advantage back out to eight.

Orsillo finished the game with 18 points for the Sun Devils, while Bennett notched her second straight double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Senior guard Tenaya Watson also finished in double figures with 10 points.

“We do really need to develop our perimeter shooting, but we sure did establish our inside game today and really got Kali going,” Turner Thorne said. “We did some good things, and we adjusted [to ETSU’s zone defense] and we found ways to score.”

ETSU senior guard/forward Siarre Evans led all scorers with 22 points and also grabbed 12 rebounds.

The Sun Devils will not leave Hawaii completely unharmed, however, as Fage will have surgery on Wednesday to repair a broken nose she suffered against Xavier and will miss ASU’s next three games, Turner Thorne said.

Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu