San Francisco, Calif.— The University of Hawai'I soccer team suffered a 2-0 setback on the road at San Francisco on Sunday afternoon.
The Rainbow Wahine (3-3-1) wrapped up their final non-conference road trip with the first road loss of the season. The Dons (7-3) blanked their second consecutive opponent, outscoring UH and Sacramento State by a combined score of 7-0, and have won six of their last eight matches.
Junior goalkeeper
Alexis Mata recorded a career-high 12 saves surpassing her previous mark set back on Oct. 26, 2017, when she collected 10 saves against conference foe Cal State Fullerton. The Dons' offensive attack of 26 shots was the single most shots Mata faced in her career, spanning 27 matches. It's also the seventh time in her career she faced a squad who collected over 20 shots.
"I thought Alexis (Mata) had an incredible game today," said head coach
Michele Nagamine. We didn't handle the turf field well and struggled to get control of the ball. Combine that with the fact that USF is a very athletic team with a ton of speed; they were a handful for us today. Our defense gave a solid performance, and Lex (
Alexis Mata) came up huge time and time again; the score would've been a lot higher if not for her heroics in goal.
The first 45 minutes saw the UH defense battle as sophomore
Taylor Mason, along with the freshman trio of
Morgan Meza,
Elena Palacios, and
Natalie Daub fed off the play of Mata. The Dons recorded 12 shots with eight shots on goals but were held scoreless.
Shots and overall pressure by the Dons began to take its toll in the second frame as they registered the only two goals of the day within eight minutes of each other. Samantha Jennings collected her eighth goal of the season in the 58th minute, followed by Cassidy George finding the net for the first time in 2018 off a corner kick.
USF outshot UH 26-4 including 14 shots on goal compared to three. Corner kick opportunities favored USF, totaling nine.
UH will return to the island of O'ahu for their final two matches of the non-conference schedule by hosting the Rainbow Wahine Shootout Sept. 20-23. North Dakota State and Grand Canyon will kickoff the event at Waipi'o Peninsula Soccer Stadium on Thursday. UH will then take on NDSU on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. HT, followed by GCU on Sunday at 5:00 p.m. HT.
