KEAAU — Finally, it went according to the plan for the University of Hawaii at Hilo women’s soccer team and coach Gene Okamura.
For two years now, laboring under an interim title while coaching both the men’s and women’s teams in the same season, the Vulcans women have pushed and prodded in every game, led the conference in draws and never really had a chance to breathe easily.
Until Saturday, that is, when Academy of Art (0-7-1, 0-3 in Pacific West Conference) came to the Vulcans’ borrowed home field at Kamehameha and UHH (4-3-1, 1-2-1 PWC), sent them away after carving out a 4-0 victory.
It was the Vulcans’ most lopsided win in nearly four years, matching the 4-0 pasting they put on Holy Names Oct. 26, 2013.
“We were hoping for an early goal and we got two,” Okamura said, “but after that, it was a disappointment to see our energy level drop. We talked about it at halftime.”
All coaches hope for early goals, but against bottom-end teams like Art U, the quick goal can have a debilitating effect on the opponent. That happened, but the quality of play had spots of inconsistency.
Still, it didn’t take long for the Vulcans’ pace to break down the Art U defenders and open the scoring. Just seven minutes into the match junior right forward Kayela Santiago got past the Urban Knights’ back line and received a long pass down the wing, punched it straight ahead and just before the end line sent a cross to Bryanna-Marie Ebbers, who played her high school games on this field, and tapped it in from five yards out for her third goal of the season.
Five minutes later the score doubled when Carlee Reader, a midfield transfer from Chico State, artfully worked her way through three defenders and had wide open spaces to place the ball, which she did, when it stretched the twine in the back of the net for her second goal off the season.
At 2-0, the Vulcans had their biggest lead of the Pacific West Conference season and room to experiment a bit with the lineup.
After the two-goal lead, UHH shifted out of its 4-3-3 attack it commonly starts games with and converted to more of a 3-4-3 approach in appearance, though it was just a matter of moving the two outside backs up a bit to strengthen the midfield and keep the visitors on their own end of the field.
In the second half, Academy of Art fell back into a defensive shell whenever the Vulcans gained possession, spending most of the final 45 minutes with 10 players behind ball while UHH spent an inordinate amount of time playing in the Knights’ penalty area.
Reader was again involved in a lot of disruption in the Art U end of the field, continually stretching the defense out of shape for teammates.
In the 57th minute, senior midfielder Astrid Perez made a strong run down the right side, outpaced here defender and sent a tantalizing cross looping directly in front of the goal but no one else had a chance to catch up to the play and be in position for a header or a tap in.
On their sixth corner of the match, the Vulcans tallied again in the 63rd minute when midfielder Sabrina Scott delivered a well-placed ball that Ebbers redirected in front of the goal and got the assist on Clarissa Guerrero’s second shot and first goal of the season for a 3-0 lead.
Guerrero made it 4-0 with a rocket shot past goalie Morgan Wirz in the 67th minute off a pass from Jaimie Salas.
“I felt like I got a slow start today,” Reader said, “like I wasn’t really on my game but after I got the (first) goal I thought, ‘We can get through this defense all we want,’ and it started feeling like it was our game.
“(Okamura) was upset at halftime, for sure,” Reader said, “and he was right. We got the result we wanted, but we’ve played better as a team against some of the top teams, when maybe all we got out of it was a tie.
“But we can build from here,” she said.
It looked pretty good on paper, where Vulcans outshot Art U 20-2 after Art U had been averaging seven shots a game.
Next up is winless Holy Names, on Tuesday. The Hawks (0-7-1), played a scoreless overtime draw Saturday at Hawaii Pacific.
Urban Knights 1, Vulcans 0 (2 OT)
Right about the time you think it can’t get any worse, it gets worse.
Welcome to the 2017 men’s soccer season at UH-Hilo.
The Vulcans, winless in 378 days, had another one go the wrong way in an overtime loss to Art U (3-3-1, 2-1-0 PWC) after playing the final three minutes of regulation and all of the overtime periods with just 10 men after Jack Storehouse was red carded out of the game.
Goalie Nick Williams did more than one can normally ask of a goalie when he stopped a penalty kick, then snuffed the rebound shot to give his side a chance after it appeared it was about to fall behind in the 96th minute.
In the second overtime, Williams was finally scored on behind a Bobby Gutierrez rocket from the right side of Williams that crossed in front of him and found its way into the back of the net.
Williams was all over the penalty kick by Alex Walsh after a tip from the coaching staff that Walsh would go to Williams’ right. He did and Williams was there.
“We were losing our heads a little bit (defensively),”
Williams said, “and they kept pressing us in the second half and it finally got to us.”
The Vulcans (0-7; 0-4 in PWC), pressed the attack from the start of the match and controlled the ball for vast amounts of time in the first half when Art U played a defensive style and looked for the counter attack.
It got a few of those after prolonged pressure by Hawaii Hilo, but the first 45 minutes were mostly a story of missed opportunities by the Vulcans who kept up the pressure without fail.
Two of the best opportunities came in the last 10 minutes of the half when senior Jake Sagami lofted a cross to freshman forward Bryan Reynoso whose attempt went just wide in the 37th minute. Four minutes later, sophomore Jesus Ortega and sophomore Jonathan Garcia both had opportunities in front of goalie Nick Williams who got a hand on one and had the other sail wide.
The Urban Knights came out with a more ambitious approach in the second half that seemed to wear down the Vulcans.
“Playing with 10 didn’t help us,” Okamura said, “I don’t know if it was our legs that were going or the fact that we only had 10 on the field and that left some open spaces.
“We played well enough to win,” he said, “but again, when you have clear cut opportunities and you don’t score, that’s going to break you at some point.”
