The Hawaii soccer team was left wanting upon its temporary farewell to its home field.
Washington State pounced on Rainbow Wahine mistakes for three scores in the second half and prevailed 3-1 in the finale of the Outrigger Resorts Soccer Classic at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium on Sunday.
UH (2-4) fell at home to a Pac-12 team for a third time this season.
The Wahine will not return to Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium for an official match until they face Cal State Fullerton in the start of Big West Conference play on Oct. 2. The Wahine depart Wednesday, play four road matches over a two-week span and return for their alumnae game on Sept. 27.
UH coach Michele Nagamine thought her team got sucked into the Cougars’ preferred faster pace after the break, then committed some "silly mistakes."
Beneath clear skies and a full moon, Wazzu (3-0-2) seized control late with goals in the 57th, 72nd and 76th minutes. Beau Bremer put in two scores.
"We just gotta be smarter," Nagamine said. "I told (my players) the difference between good teams and great teams is that attention to detail. And our details were poor today. I think Washington State is a very good team and very experienced. They’ve got some depth. You know, they came out at us pretty high pressure."
Top-ranked UCLA won the tournament with a 2-0 result over No. 11 Pepperdine prior to UH’s match on Sunday.
| All-Tournament
» MVP: Sarah Killion, UCLA
» Abby Dahlkemper, UCLA
» Caprice Dydasco, UCLA
» Meagan Harbison, Pepperdine
» Kaitlyn Johnson, Washington State
» Sam Mewis, UCLA
» Krystal Pascua, Hawaii
» Katelyn Rowland, UCLA
» Nicole Setterlund, Washington State
» Taylor Smith, UCLA
» Lynn Williams, Pepperdine
|
Two days removed from Friday’s 6-0 loss to the Bruins, the Wahine were back to playing their game early. They went toe-to-toe with this foe for the first 45 minutes.
Forward Krystal Pascua staked the Wahine to a 1-0 halftime lead. In the 36th minute, she launched a shot to the upper right corner from straightaway about 20 yards out. It was the first goal allowed this season by goalkeeper Gurveen Clair.
But after that, the little things began to loom large.
Junior defender Lidia Battaglia noticed an uptick in the game’s physicality as the match began to get away. Bodies began hitting the pitch with regularity.
"Definitely. It was getting a little dirtier," Battaglia said.
Bremer got past a UH defender and sidestepped Wahine goalkeeper Erica Young to equalize in the 57th minute.
Kaitlyn Johnson scored unassisted in the box about 15 minutes later and Bremer capped things off with a putback goal when Young could not cleanly field a free kick by Mes Owsley.
UH had a few quality chances to get back a goal late, but could not capitalize.
"We came out strong, thinking we could win. We could have won," co-captain Ashley "Muki" Haruki said. "Just the simple things … that we really need to pay attention to, because that’s the things that are killing us. Three little things that just put us down. We had a chance to win. I mean, we were playing up-and-up with them."
Young started in goal for the third straight match in place of Monk Berger, who has an injured quad. Young hurt her wrist on a collision in the box on Sunday, but played out the match.
