HONOLULU — The last time Kelci Sumida saw Day 1 fitness this good, she was a wide-eyed freshman on what turned out to be the first Hawaii team to qualify for the Big West tournament.
The fifth-year senior hopes what she witnessed Tuesday morning correlates to a successful bookend to her career in the upcoming 2023 season. Some dedicated offseason training resulted in the majority of the team hitting its targets in conditioning testing at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium.
“It does play a role into how we do over the season. It’s a really good sign,” said the Moanalua alumna Sumida.
UH, which went 6-6-3 last season (3-4-3 Big West), narrowly missed out on the BWC tournament, for which the cutoff is the top six among 11 teams. To date, the only time UH has made it to the conference postseason in a decade of BWC membership was 2019.
Sumida decided in December she wanted one more crack at it. She called up coach Michele Nagamine.
“It was so out of the blue. She thought I was calling to ask about her new dog that she just got,” Sumida said with a laugh. “She was just really surprised. Even my parents were surprised. … I just really missed it and I wanted to come back.”
Eliza Ammendolia, from Australia, was another veteran who went through the traditional senior ceremony last fall, only to decide to exercise an available COVID year of eligibility as a graduate student. The Big West canceled its 2020 soccer season entirely.
Nagamine, who is going into her 13th year with UH soccer, said she too sensed something different about the group’s readiness, even with eight newcomers.
“I’m really proud of them for the work that they put in when nobody was watching,” she said.
For that, she credited the team’s veterans like Sumida, Ammendolia and Krista Peterson for setting the tone organizing team’s voluntary offseason activities. She pantomimed a couple of the newcomers Tuesday as they witnessed the older players leading the way in 20-yard dash testing.
“It was very, very cool for me as a coach to get to see their reaction when (the veterans) were live in action,” Nagamine said.
Sumida said she focused on increasing her strength for her final year. Third-year sophomore Amber Gilbert said she worked with former UH football player Kenny Patton on her fitness.
A freshman, Tatum Porter, was among those who graded out the highest, Nagamine said. Porter, a midfielder from Anchorage, was the Alaska Gatorade Player of the Year for her senior season at A.J. Diamond High.
In returning offensive production, UH has 14 of its 15 goals scored last season with Peterson (five), Gilbert (four), Sumida (two), Ammendolia (two) and Fabiola Zamora (one).
“There’s a lot of competition for every position,” said Gilbert, a Mililani graduate. “We’ve been training without the coaches, just doing little scrimmages and stuff. I can definitely see how quick and skillful the new, incoming players are. So, I think (they’ll) be a good addition to our team.”
All-BWC second-teamer Jacey Jicha is back to lead the defensive line. However, UH lost its most experienced goalkeeper, Lauren Marquez, to graduation. It has part-time starter Sophie Augustin back as well as sophomore Brianna Chirpich. Augustin, a senior, was 2-0 with an .840 save percentage last season. There is also a 5-foot-10 freshman, Kennedy Justin, as an option between the pipes. UH has a new goalkeepers coach in Daniel Saucedo, who replaced longtime staff member Marc Fournier. Fournier stepped away from college coaching after the 2022 season.
UH plays an exhibition against Houston Christian on Aug. 13 and opens officially with Utah Valley at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium on Aug. 17.
The Wahine can practice at their traditional grass practice field location through August. Afterward, they will move to Mid-Pacific Institute for training sessions as the two-tiered Cooke Field gets leveled to make way for a soccer and track venue expected to be ready for use for day games by the 2024 season.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.