Michele Nagamine’s debut as Hawaii women’s soccer coach came in front of 2,850 people, the second-highest attendance ever for a home UH soccer match.
Washington State scored three goals in the second half for a 3-1 victory, but it was clear that a new brand of UH soccer left the majority of the crowd excited for what lies ahead.
"I don’t think the score was very reflective of the flow of the game," Nagamine said as dozens of well-wishers waited to greet her after the game. "We always talk about giving the crowd something to be proud of and I think we did that tonight."
Coming off a 3-14-3 season, nobody knew what to expect against a Washington State team that returned eight starters.
It didn’t take long for UH to record its first goal of the 2011 season, executing its first set play of the game to perfection.
Senior Rachel Domingo took a free kick from 25 yards out and put the ball on a direct line to Brittani Lum, who used her 5-foot-7 frame to head the ball past Washington State goalkeeper Gurveen Clair.
"It’s a team effort to get (the ball) to the corner in the first place," Lum said. "We’ve worked on our set plays and it’s going to be really critical to finish them."
It was one of the few scoring chances in the first half as both teams struggled to get clean shots on goal.
Each team had a chance in the final moments of the half when UH goalkeeper Kanani Taaca saved a header by Nicole Setterlund off a free kick.
With less than 10 seconds remaining, a loose ball deep in Cougars territory found the foot of junior Amber Fuller, who drilled a shot from just outside the penalty box right at Clair, who made the save to end the half.
WSU came out strong in the second half, tying the game at 1-all in the 51st minute.
Taaca saved a shot by junior Brandi Vega, but the rebound bounced directly to Eileen Maes, who hammered a shot into the right side of the goal.
Freshman Ashley Haruki just missed giving UH the lead in the 62nd minute, missing wide left off a corner kick.
Three minutes later, the Cougars took the lead for good as Maes scored her second goal off a free kick, blasting a shot past UH’s wall that Taaca had no chance of saving.
Maes completed the hat trick in the 72nd minute, getting the assist from Jacquelyn Roth.
"When you’ve got kids that play at the national level, they know how to win," Nagamine said about WSU. "We’re going to aspire to play at the highest level that we can play at every game, and we didn’t back down.
"We challenged for every ball down to the last minute."
Haruki and Krystal Pascua started their first game as UH used 16 different players.
Fuller, a transfer from Hawaii Pacific, and Madison Kaminski also saw playing time in their first game for UH.
