You haven’t heard of them — yet.

If Hawaii soccer coach Michele Nagamine is right, it’ll only be a matter of time before you do.

Nagamine announced the signings of nine players for her 2012 class on Thursday — eight freshmen from California to go along with ‘Iolani defender Amanda McCaskill.

Local recruiting is still a high priority for the second-year UH coach. It just so happened that the top club players in this crop hailed from the West Coast, she said.

“It’s always been my intent to surround the best local players with very competitive kids, both international and mainland recruits. And with this class, it’s a little more mainland-heavy,” Nagamine said.

“Next year’s class is going to be predominantly local, but smaller. (This year) I wanted to bring in a larger recruiting class to bring in that intensity and raise that level of competition.”

UH lost five players from Nagamine’s inaugural Wahine team that went 5-12-1 overall in 2011, including 4-2-1 in Western Athletic Conference play. Most of what UH lost was from the defensive side.

With UH’s move to the Big West Conference this summer, the level of competition is expected to jump from the WAC. The California-based Big West became a selling point for Golden State recruits.

“They’re coming off some of the top high school and club teams in the country. And what that does is, these kids are playing against the best players every single weekend.” Nagamine said. “They learn how to set goals, they learn how to manage their time. They travel every month with a club team. This is the kind of soccer-savvy player that is really going to help us to change our program. Quite a few of these kids coming in are going to be program-changers for us.”

And the class wasn’t a wash on the local circuit. The 5-foot-8 “Ziggy” McCaskill is a four-year Raiders letterwinner from Waipahu and was a teammate of current Wahine midfielder Krystal Pascua.

“We feel that we got one of the best local defenders coming out of the class of 2012 for sure,” Nagamine said.

Goalkeeper was a position of emphasis, with returning keeper Kanani Taaca going into her senior year. Nagamine brought in two — Georgia Barnes (5-6) of Northgate High in Concord, Calif., and Erica Young (5-7) of Dana Hills High.