Hawaii athletes earn PacWest honors

Four soccer players at Hawaii schools were honored by the Pacific West Conference on Monday for their performances over the past week.

Hawaii Pacific’s Gerrit Arzberger and Hawaii Hilo’s Teani Arakawa were named the PacWest Player of the Week for men’s and women’s soccer, respectively. Meanwhile, the Defender of the Week awards went to Chaminade goalkeepers Brandon Yasue and Naomi Takata.

Hawaii Pacific only had one match last week, but Arzberger made the most the opportunity. He was directly involved on all three goals in the 3-0 home win over Fresno Pacific, scoring twice while assisting on a third goal.

Arakawa helped UH Hilo stay unbeaten this season with three goals and an assist. She scored a goal and assisted on another after coming off the bench in the Vulcans’ 4-0 victory over Holy Names. She scored two more goals in UH Hilo’s 3-0 win over Biola. Hawaii Hilo was named the PacWest team of the Week after improving to 11-0-2 on the season and 6-0-1 in the conference.

Yasue recorded his first clean sheet of the season on Oct. 18 with a six-save performance against Fresno Pacific. He continued his shutout streak for the first 89 1/2 minutes of Saturday’s game against Azusa Pacific. He recorded eight more saves before conceding a goal with 24 seconds left.

Takata posted clean sheets against Fresno Pacific and Azusa Pacific to help the Silverswords maintain a hold on second place in the PacWest standings. Her shutout against Fresno Pacific was her fifth, breaking her own program record, which she set in 2019 and last season. She extended her season record to six against Azusa Pacific.

Chaminade drops road matchups at Biola

The Chaminade men’s and women’s soccer teams lost road matchups to host Biola at Al Barbour Field on Monday. The Silverswords men fell 6-0, while the Silverswords women lost 1-0.

Silverswords men’s goalkeeper Brandon Yasue conceded three goals in the first 13 minutes of the game, but bounced back to make a season-high 10 saves. He later gave up a fourth goal, before being replaced in the final 10 minutes.

The Chaminade women outshot Biola 8-2 in the first half, but their aggressive play didn’t translate into points. Meanwhile, the Eagles took the second-half kickoff and quickly drove into the Silverswords box and scored the winning goal just 21 seconds into the half.