Wahine soccer team breaks loose against Denver for first road win of the season

Mile-high altitude gave way to a determined attitude Sunday for the Hawaii soccer team.

The Rainbow Wahine recorded their first road victory of the season with a 2-0 decision at Denver, giving them a chance to post a winning record on their Colorado road trip if they can prevail at Air Force on Tuesday.

Paige Okazaki and Addie Steiner scored a few minutes apart early in the second half to break open what had been a scoreless game at halftime, and UH improved to 6-1-1 on the year. UH came off a 3-1 loss at Colorado to start the trip Friday.

“I think this was one of our grittiest performances,” UH coach Michele Nagamine said in a postgame phone interview. “We really tried to downplay the whole altitude thing, but it’s hard. … We were watching the (Denver) Broncos game (Thursday) and the other team (Carolina) is sucking on oxygen.

“But today they just powered through it. To get two goals in a five-minute span, we just pounced on them.”

Goalkeeper Monk Berger recorded her fourth solo shutout of the season, moving the senior past Kori Lu for the Rainbow Wahine career record at 13. It was UH’s first shutout on the road since it closed the 2014 season with back-to-back clean sheets at UC Irvine and Cal State Northridge.

Denver (3-5) of the Summit League recently went to Arizona State and won 3-1 and was coming off a shutout win over Northern Colorado.

UH went to a conservative 4-5-1 formation late in the first half to help give its starters some rest, then reverted to a 4-4-2 before the decisive sequence.

“If we could regroup, we could have a real good second half, and that’s exactly what happened,” Nagamine said.

First, Sarah Lau had a 55th-minute corner kick header shot bounce off the crossbar and off bodies in the box. Okazaki, a defender, put in a rebound at close range for the junior’s first goal of the season and second career.

Then fellow back-line player Dani Crawford broke upfield in the 59th minute and slotted what Nagamine called “a perfectly timed ball” to the senior Steiner, who put it home for her second score of the year.

Down the stretch, UH was able to play nearly its entire road roster. That could be important for Tuesday’s clash with the Falcons (2-1-1) of the Mountain West.

“(Going 2-1) was pretty much our goal coming up here,” Nagamine said. “If we could go 2-1 on the road in altitude, that’s going to be a massive accomplishment for this team.”