Following an 8-1 home win against HPU on Saturday, the UH-Hilo women’s soccer team advanced in the nation’s ranks — and some of its players received awards.
No. 5 ranking
The Vulcans moved ahead one spot to No. 5 in the latest United Soccer Coaches NCAA Division II Top 25 Poll released Tuesday morning. The Vulcans, now 8-0-1, came in at a tie for the No. 5 spot with Colorado Mesa (9-0-1), who was previously ranked fourth. Embry-Riddle leapfrogged CMU to the No. 4 ranking.
UH-Hilo had just one match last week (against HPU), as the No. 5 rank is now the highest achieved in program history. The Vulcans also remained atop the West Region Ranking with Concordia University Irvine following (No. 12) at No. 2, Seattle Pacific (No. 24) following at No. 3 and Point Loma at No. 7.
Ashland University (10-0-1) continued atop the top 25 at No. 1. There are 13 unbeaten teams in the current top 25.
Players share PoTW
There have been 51 hat tricks in PacWest women’s soccer history, but never three in the same day.
That happened on Saturday when UH-Hilo’s Megan Donovan and Jazlynn Ellis accomplished the feat, along with Westmont’s Amelia Villa. They are the Players of the Week. Sure, Megan Donovan scored three times during an 8-1 win over HPU last Saturday, but she also shared the wealth with two assists. That gave her eight points for the match, the third highest total in PacWest history, sharing that rung with nine other players.
The fifth-year senior and fourth-year Vulcan tied a UH-Hilo school record with the eight points and now has 14 points on the season. The southern California native needed just 49 minutes and four shots to accomplish the rare feat.
Jazlynn Ellis, a first-year Vulcan and a transfer from Illinois Chicago, scored three times in UH-Hilo’s 8-1 win over HPU.
Ellis pocketed Hilo’s second and third goals of the day in the 20th and 22nd minute and added a third early in the second half (59th minute). The Colorado native played just 43 minutes in the match. Ellis now has six goals and four assists in nine matches this year for 16 points, second in the conference.
KTA superstars
Even before going on a three-goal scoring outburst on the soccer field late in the month, fifth-year senior Megan Donovan was already accomplishing new feats as a recently-converted dual-sport student-athlete after also competing in two events as a member of the Women’s Cross Country team — finishing as the Vulcans’ leading runner in both races.
Donovan made her debut as a collegiate runner Sept. 16 at the Chaminade Invitational on O’ahu with a No. 12 finish, just 14 hours after logging 54 minutes in the Vulcans Women’s Soccer team’s 3-1 win over Stanislaus State.
In her 29th-career soccer game with her 22nd-career shot attempt, Donovan found the back of the net for the first time as part of a 6-0 win over Academy of Art on Sept. 25. Three days later, Donovan added two more scores to get the Vulcans on the scoreboard of a 3-0 victory over Dominican (Sept. 28).
The UH-Hilo Women’s Soccer team went 7-0-1 through the month of September and achieved a top 25 ranking of No. 6 for the month, recently moving to No. 5.
Coming off a successful first season with claims as PacWest Conference Championships Individual Co-Champion and PacWest Conference Freshman of the Year, Junsu Im continued forward to start his sophomore campaign with back-to-back top 10 finishes. The UH-Hilo Men’s Golf team opened the fall 2023 slate in Washington with Im finishing tied for third at the Saint Martin’s University Bishop Invitational and tied for sixth at the Western Washington University Invitational just a few days later.
Im was also selected as the conference’s first PacWest Conference Golfer of the Week.