As Hawaii’s hunt for the elusive first win of the season continues, the Rainbow Wahine soccer team can sense progress in the process.
After dropping both ends of a home-and-away opening weekend to the Big West season, the Wahine return to Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium aiming for a long-awaited breakthrough.
“I would say definitely the pieces are coming together,” UH senior defender Natalie Daub said. “It’s just the little things that we’re making mistakes on.
“So now we have the rhythm as a team as a whole, but it’s more we have to hone in on the little things and not let those be what defines the game.”
The Rainbow Wahine (0-6-1, 0-2 Big West) face Cal Poly (6-5, 2-0) today and UC Santa Barbara (3-6-2, 1-1) on Sunday at WPSS looking to build on the positives extracted from last week’s home loss to Cal State Northridge and a road defeat at conference preseason favorite Long Beach State.
The Wahine led early in the Big West opener against CSUN before the Matadors rallied then held off the Wahine in a 3-2 win at WPSS last Thursday. After flying to Southern California the next day, UH stayed within a goal of Long Beach State deep into Sunday’s match.
The host Beach netted two scores in quick succession and UH freshman Trini Quiroz broke up the shutout off a corner kick from junior Morgan Meza and the Wahine headed back to Oahu with a 3-1 loss.
Although the goal didn’t impact the outcome, UH coach Michele Nagamine saw significance in the effort with eight remaining conference matches offering opportunities to turn their fortunes.
“We scored a goal in the last minute of the game and that’s a mentality of, ‘never quit,’ ” Nagamine said.
“I’m proud of the fact that they haven’t give up on each other, they haven’t turned on each other and we are getting better. … I know this is stuff we can build on.”
The discrepancy between Hawaii’s total matches and its Big West opponents was attributable to five teams pulling out of UH’s nonconference schedule. Nagamine said some of the schools backed out due to tighter budgets amid the pandemic leaving the Wahine behind their peers in game experience.
“There were a lot of reasons but whatever it was we’re five games behind everybody else and it shows in our game fitness and it’s just very hard to replicate,” Nagamine said, “We’re fit, but we’re not match-fit and that’s bitten us.”
After being shutout in their four matches, the Wahine took leads in two of their last three matches but weren’t able to finish off a win. Sophomore Kelci Sumida leads UH with three goals with one each for Quiroz and freshman Krista Peterson.
“The reality is we’re playing our best soccer organizationally, but we’re giving up silly goals and that’s what we’re trying to fix,” Nagamine said.
“We finally found a way to put the ball in the back of the net, which was what we struggled with initially. So I know it sounds weird, but in my mind we are improving and we’re learning and we’re getting young players a significant amount of minutes.”
Cal Poly was among three teams to come out of the first week of Big West play at 2-0 along with Long Beach State and UC Davis. The Mustangs have scored a league-high 23 goals led by five each for sophomores Camille Lafaix and Nikki Trucco.
UC Santa Barbara split matches with UC Riverside (a 2-1 win) and Cal State Fullerton (a 1-0 loss) and has seven goals in 11 matches.
BIG WEST SOCCER
At Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium
Cal Poly (6-5, 2-0 BWC) vs. Hawaii (0-6-1, 0-2)
>> When: Today, 7 p.m.
>> TV: Spectrum Sports
>> Radio: None
