Hawaii soccer: For once, Wahine in favorable position on road

UPDATE: Hawaii went on the road and beat UC Riverside 2-0 to improve to 3-0 in conference play for the first time since the WAC championship season of 2007.

After a scoreless first half, UH got goals from Kelci Sumida in the 55th minute (assisted by Kayla Watanabe) and from Eliza Ammendolia in the 88th (from Daelenn Tokunaga). UPDATE: Riverside made a stat fix to reflect that Elena Palacios had the assist for Sumida, not Watanabe.

It was the team-high-tying third goal of the season for Sumida and the first career for Ammendolia.

UH (5-6-1 overall) meets Cal State Fullerton (10-2-2, 3-0-1) at 2 p.m. (HST) on Sunday in a battle of conference leaders.

UC Riverside dropped to 2-11-1 and 0-4. It was UH’s first win on Riverside’s turf field in four attempts as a Big West member.

UPDATE: Here’s coach Michele Nagamine after the win: “Well we talked to the women at halftime about staying the course and just asked them to be patient and methodical about breaking their press. Riverside was extremely organized defensively which we expected but the amount of pressure that they were able to put on us especially in the midfield was a but overwhelming in the first half. I actually have no idea how they maintained that kind of pressure and intensity for 90 minutes. There were a couple of close calls but Alexis Mata (three saves, fifth shutout of season, 13th career) came up huge again tonight.

“To get this kind of win on the road is a huge statement for our program and how far we’ve come and how much we’ve improved. Tonight was a series of firsts (first time we are 3-0, first time we’ve won our opening Big West Conference road match, first time we’ve won at Riverside and I could not be happier for my team. The fact that we had two freshmen score tonight was also pretty cool. It’s great to see how seriously our team is taking their preparation for games. Rachael (assistant Doyle)’s scouting reports are spot on and Marc (assistant Fournier) keeps the players on a very organized, tight schedule and they are responding well. We have all agreed not to get ahead of ourselves. We will enjoy this win tonight but will be focused on Fullerton tomorrow.”

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A great start for the Hawaii soccer team is just that.

A start.

How the Rainbow Wahine finish this season — in their first Big West tournament (or beyond), or simply at the end of eight conference games — could well be determined by what happens in this week’s pair of road games.

“Right now we’re really excited to see what we can do with the rest of our season,” senior midfielder Mikaelah Johnson-Griggs said before the team flew out for California on Wednesday. “It’s really pretty much just begun. We’ve only done two games and we still have so much left. So I’m not going to say we’re on a high, but I think we’re prepared and ready to come in for this road trip and show these teams what we’ve got, because typically we’re underestimated and I think we’ve shown that shouldn’t be the case.”

UH (4-6-1, 2-0 Big West) is unbeaten through two BWC games for the first time, having won it home twice, but now plays at UC Riverside (2-10-1, 0-3) at 4 p.m. (HST) today and Cal State Fullerton (10-2-1, 3-0) at 2 p.m. Sunday. The Wahine are a combined 0-6 as a Big West member at those sites.

The Wahine were without freshman forward Kelci Sumida, who was previously the team’s goals leader, in last week’s 3-0 win over UC Irvine. But senior Kayla Watanabe stepped up and scored the first two goals of her Wahine career. That was on the heels of Kayla Ryan scoring HER first two goals in a 2-1 overtime win over Cal State Northridge the week before.

Watanabe caused a stir with her emphatic double-fist-pump celebration upon getting her breakthrough goal on a pass ahead from Eliza Ammendolia.

“I was kind of laughing at that,” Watanabe said of watching herself on video afterward. “But I was so excited in the moment, that it’s funny what it looked like after, because I thought it looked different.” She laughed.

That the Wahine can laugh at themselves so early in conference play (they were previously 0-7 in BWC openers) is a testament to the position they find themselves in. If they come up with a result at Riverside, it alleviates a lot of pressure to do so at first-place Fullerton, which is 7-0 against UH in seven years of Big West matchups.

Riverside, playing on its turf field, is in a spot that the Wahine have been plenty of times — needing a win to try to claw its way back up the conference points standings.

“We need to realize that they’re pretty desperate for a win right now, and teams that are desperate do what it takes to get it done,” said goalkeeper Lex Mata, whose shutout against Irvine was her fourth of the season and 12th career (T-second in UH history). “We want to go in there and make sure we’re not the team that gives up that first win. We want to be the team that knocks them out of the tournament. We have that opportunity, so we gotta take advantage of it.”

This post will be updated with Thursday’s result against UC Riverside.