Wednesday, August 18, 1999

Tough road schedule
for soccer Wahine

By Al Chase
Star-Bulletin

The Hawaii Wahine soccer team needs to develop into competent road warriors in 1999.

Hawaii plays 10 of its 19 matches on the mainland including four of six Western Athletic Conference games.

"We scheduled teams from both ends of the spectrum. Stanford had the second best recruiting year behind North Carolina and we play more Division II teams than usual," said UH head coach Pinsoom Tenzing.

The Wahine open and close the regular season against Hawaii Pacific. Opening against the Sea Warriors became necessary when a mainland school pulled out of the season-opening tournament.

In between, there are nonconference home matches with St. Mary's, Stanford - a first-round loser to Brigham Young in the NCAA tournament last year - defending Big Sky Conference champion Weber State, San Francisco and Oral Roberts.

Stanford is No. 13 in Soccer America's preseason poll.

The conference home matches are against Tulsa and Texas-El-Paso, both WAC tournament participants a year ago.

On the first road trip, the Wahine play Portland State and Portland, a 1-0 loser to national champion Florida in the NCAA semifinals last fall.

Portland has averaged 18 wins a season the past four years and is ranked No. 4 in Soccer America's preseason poll. One of the Pilots top recruits is Lauren Orlandos, a member of the United States Under 21 national team.

Conference road games are at Fresno State, San Jose State, Southern Methodist and Texas Christian, all WAC tournament qualifiers in 1998.

"I think the schedule is similar to last year as far as strength in concerned. We're playing the entire spectrum. We're playing the very best and we're playing more D-II teams (Cal State Hayward and Texas Wesleyan) on the road," Tenzing said.

"The D-II road games were convenient venues. We weren't looking for an easy game and there's no saying they will be easy games after two conference games.''

The top four teams in the regular season advance to the WAC tournament at SMU, Nov. 5 and 7.

Tenzing greeted 29 candidates on Monday for this season's team.

The only veteran not returning is nonscholarship defender Melissa Philbrook, who plans to transfer to either Fairfield (Conn.) or Xavier (Ohio).