The University of Hawaii at Hilo women’s soccer team is ready to continue its success this upcoming season on new home turf.
The team of 30 athletes has been able to start strong by practicing on the new turf field on the UH-Hilo campus.
“This is pretty awesome. We’ve been training off campus for years and it’s hard to train sometimes when the weather isn’t great,” said Head Coach Gene Okamura. “Now we can have higher quality training sessions on our field, where we can get exactly what we need from practice. We finally have home turf to host matches, which will make a difference.”
The Vulcans set the standard last year with the women’s soccer team laying claim as Co-Pacific West Conference Champions.
UH-Hilo received two first-place votes to land at the No. 2 spot in the 2022 PacWest Preseason Coaches Poll that was released last week. Point Loma Nazarene was voted No. 1 as it collected the remaining nine first-place votes.
With stand out athletes returning along with several new players at the helm, Okamura is looking forward to seeing what this team can do.
“We returned some very big pieces from our team last year and have added really good players. Our group is looking solid,” Okamura said. “I would say the quality within the team is only increasing, but now we’re down to figuring out where to connect all our pieces.”
Many returning athletes have been given preseason honors from the PacWest Poll.
Reigning conference Player of the Year Daelenn Tokunaga and Goalkeeper of the Year Viviana Poli were tapped for the same respective preseason honors.
Vulcans defender Jodi Lillie and forward Filippa Graneld were named to the Preseason All-PacWest Team. Graneld was also named 2021 Newcomer of the Year.
Okamura was selected as the 2021 Coach of the Year while midfielder Alyssa Padron and defender Bailee Brennan earned Second Team and Third Team distinctions, respectfully.
“With a bunch of great players on our roster, we’re looking to fine tune concepts from last year and be more dynamic in our goal scoring ability,” Okamura said. “I think overall, we’re trying to be sharper.”
UH-Hilo will begin the season on Thursday with a match against Cal State East Bay on Oahu.
“Many teams have already started playing, so we’re going to need to gain our rhythm as fast as possible,” Okamura said. “We’re in our beginning stages, but the team looks good and we’re looking forward to that first match.”
The first home match will be non-conference with Hawaii Pacific on at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17.
PacWest season play is set to start on Monday, Sept. 26 against Dominican at home.
Email Kelsey Walling at kwalling@hawaiitribune-herald.com