They’ve practiced on the football field, ran their fitness test in the softball facility and have even kicked the ball around inside of Les Murakami Stadium.
The Hawaii women’s soccer team has utilized every option it can find to prepare for the season starting tonight without a home field to practice on every day.
With construction ongoing on a new on-campus facility for the soccer team, head coach Michele Nagamine has made the most of the situation without offering up any complaints.
What isn’t an issue is Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium, which will host the four-team Outrigger Soccer Kickoff and will include Hawaii, Georgia Southern, Pepperdine and Utah State.
The Rainbow Wahine face Georgia Southern in tonight’s doubleheader nightcap at 7 p.m.
“Excited is a definite understatement,” Nagamine said in a media session on Tuesday. “They’ve been chomping at the bit all week just to get out and get some questions answered. We want to know what we look like and how we measure up against a couple of pretty good teams this weekend. We’re really, really excited.”
Nagamine has exuded a quiet confidence for a team that returns 89 percent of the team’s goal scoring from last season, which ended with the program’s second appearance in the Big West Conference Tournament since joining the conference in 2012.
The 18 returning players have combined to make 275 career starts at UH with nine of the 11 players who started at least 10 games last season coming back.
Hawaii’s opening match is the first time the Rainbow Wahine have played the Eagles, who went 7-3 in the Sun Belt Conference last season.
The tournament will conclude on Sunday with UH playing a Utah State team that went 9-2 in the regular season last year in the Mountain West Conference.
Hawaii will play its first six matches at home before its lone road trip in nonconference play to the Pacific Northwest in September to play Seattle, Eastern Washington and Portland State.
Junior Amber Gilbert, who led UH with seven goals last season was named to the preseason All-Big West team after earning first-team honors as a sophomore.
She’s started all 31 matches over the last two years after missing the two seasons prior due to injury.
Senior defender Jacey Jicha, who made the All-Big West second team last season, is one of nine players from Hawaii on the roster.
“I think we’re all ready.” Jicha said Tuesday. “We’ve worked on building through the line so I think if we all just do our job, we’ll be fine.”
Hawaii was picked to finish in a tie for seventh place with UC San Diego in the Big West Preseason Poll released on Monday as voted on by the league’s 11 head coaches. The top six teams qualify for the Big West Championship.
This year marks the 30th season of Rainbow Wahine soccer. Nagamine is entering her 13th season in charge after replacing Pinsoom Tenzing, who served as head coach for the first 17 years.
Outrigger Kickoff
At Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium
Today
>> Pepperdine vs. Utah State, 4:30 p.m.
>> Hawaii vs. Georgia Southern, 7 p.m.
Sunday
>> Georgia Southern vs. Pepperdine, Noon
>> Hawaii vs. Utah State, 2:30 p.m.
>> TV: None
>> Radio: None
