HONOLULU — The Hawaii soccer team will know right away how it stacks up against one of the Big West’s best.
UH, which tested itself early and often, took its lumps in a 3-6 pre-conference schedule. The conference portion, which begins against UC Davis on Thursday night at 7 at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium, offers a comparable test.
The Aggies (7-2), second-place league finishers the last two years, are the only Big West team to navigate nonconference play with a winning record.
“They have a lot of momentum right now,” UH coach Michele Nagamine said this week. “For us, getting them now, when they’re on that upward rise – I think they’re only going to get better as time goes on. Having it as the first conference game, at home, I like the way it’s setting up.”
UH is aiming for its third Big West tournament appearance, and second straight in its 12th year of active competition in the conference. After 10 matches, it must place among the top six of 11 teams to get to the postseason bracket for a shot at the NCAA Tournament.
The Wahine faced some underrated competition in nonconference, including No. 7 Utah State (8-0, 13th RPI), Baylor (5-3-1, 36th RPI), Portland (4-2-2, 113th RPI), Air Force (4-2-1, 116th RPI), and Seattle (5-1-2, 72nd RPI).
It is coming off a 2-1 road win at Portland State last Thursday in which the Wahine scored twice in the last 10 minutes to win, something they also did in their opener against Georgia Southern.
“We don’t settle down until the game whistle’s blown,” said midfielder Nalani Damacion, who has scored the game-winning goal in all three UH wins and is one of three freshmen nationally with a trifecta of winners.
“I think I’ve shown that on the field, that as a freshman I can make a big impact no matter if it’s the first minute or the last,” she said. “I’m hoping to get more goals to where we don’t have to have a heart attack by the end of the game.”
Nagamine said she was not surprised that the 5-foot-8 Damacion, out of Rocklin (Calif.) High, has become one of the team’s most consistent performers. She picked up her second Big West Freshman of the Week honor on Monday.
“All throughout the recruiting process Nalani showed she was the kind of player that was going to change games,” Nagamine said.
UH could use a little more of that, as it has generated a conference-best 15.2 shots per game, but has put away only 1.1 goals per game.
UH’s preseason all-conference honoree, fourth-year junior Amber Gilbert, has yet to find the net nor register an assist and has attempted only eight shots in nine matches. The Mililani alumna was third among Big West players with seven goals in 2023.
Senior Brynn Mitchell leads the Wahine with seven points (three goals, one assist) and leads the BWC in shots per game at 2.78.
Only two players, senior defender Jacey Jicha and junior forward Cate Sheahan, have started all nine UH matches to this point. Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Kennedy Justin has started every match in goal since the first, in which Brianna Chirpich suffered a season-ending injury in the final minute.
Davis is coming off a momentous 4-3 defeat of LSU thanks in large part to Genavieve Fontes, who scored twice, including the match-winner. Fontes was named BWC Offensive Player of the Week and TopDrawerSoccer.com’s National Player of the Week.
Davis has the top two scorers in the BWC in Fontes and Sam Tristan, who have seven goals apiece. They were the biggest reasons why UCD went 4-0 on the road in nonconference play.
The Aggies have an RPI of 48 while UH's is 184th of 348 Division I teams.
“I think our work is cut out for us, I’ll be honest about that, because they have multiple scoring threats,” Nagamine said. “Containing them is going to be hard.”
UH follows with a match against Division II neighbor Hawaii Pacific at 4 p.m. Sunday at WPSS.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.