By Brian McInnis

bmcinnis@staradvertiser.com

Hawaii came into its senior day undefeated at home. Cal State Fullerton arrived winless on the road. Everything gave way at the most inopportune time for the Rainbow Wahine.

UH’s Big West nemesis scored twice in the first 16 minutes and the Titans cruised to a 3-0 win on Sunday, silencing the crowd at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium.

The Wahine’s chances of qualifying for their first Big West tournament took a big hit; UH (9-4-2, 2-3-1 BWC) dropped into a three-way tie for fifth. They face an uphill path into the top four, on the road next week at UC Irvine and Cal State Northridge, the top two teams in the conference standings.

In somewhat muted fashion, UH honored eight seniors after the turnaround season’s most lopsided loss: Storm Kenui, T.J. Reyno, Elise Wassner, Monk Berger, Lauren Takai, Ryan Daniel, Madison Reed and Addie Steiner. All saw action.

“I feel horrible we had to send them out on a note like this, but the good thing is we have two games left,” UH coach Michele Nagamine said. “I think the team is going to hit the reset button and work very hard to make sure this season just doesn’t kind of fizzle out.”

She said she felt something was amiss during warm-ups, something she couldn’t put her finger on. UH’s last game was nine days ago, a scoreless draw against Long Beach State.

UH dropped to 7-1-2 at home. After scoring a goal in each of the first 13 games of the season, UH was shut out for consecutive contests.

Kenui, UH’s co-captain center back, thought Fullerton was the fastest and one of the fittest teams they’d seen all year. She was moved up to midfield by Nagamine midstream to try to spark some offense. Kenui had the best looks late for the Wahine, but they were stopped.

“Regardless of the score, I still am proud of this team,” Kenui said. “Especially the seniors for holding it down for the team and making great examples for the youngsters. We still have two more games left, so we’re in it.”

Kaycee Hoover, Sarah Fajnor and Atlanta Primus had the goals for the Titans (7-9, 4-2), the three-time defending Big West tournament champions.

“We have the benefit of some really talented women who can serve a ball,” CSF coach Demian Brown said. “The first goal we scored was kind of right off the training field for us. We knew we’d get that type of service, and we knew if we had good movement in the box we knew we’d have some chances. That was really the game plan, to try to put as much pressure on Hawaii as we could to begin the match.”

Jennifer Stuart, the reigning Big West goalkeeper of the year, was impressive in saving six shots.

Fullerton’s Hoover headed in a cross from Jessica Simonian in the 13th minute. Then Fajnor lofted a shot into the wind from the left of the 18-yard box on what looked like a cross. But the ball drifted off the far post and behind Berger.

Cal State Fullerton sealed the outcome in the 66th minute when Fajnor hit Primus in stride within the 6-yard box.