WAHINE SOCCER
Rainbow Wahine to play Bulldogs
BOISE, Idaho » Hawaii's quest for the Western Athletic Conference championship starts today against Fresno State, the team that handed the Rainbow Wahine a 1-0 defeat in the final regular-season match last Sunday.
The top-seeded Wahine (9-8-2) play the Bulldogs at 9 a.m., Hawaii time, in the first semifinal-round match of the WAC tournament at Boise State's Boas Soccer Complex.
Hawaii outshot Fresno State 13-11 last week, but the Wahine never finished on several chances, despite having shots at an open goal three times and missing a golden opportunity when a Bulldog defensive lapse let a ball roll across the goal mouth untouched.
"We need to play better than we did at home. The stakes are a little higher this time," UH coach Pinsoom Tenzing said. "Fresno played smarter last week and we didn't play particularly smart. We need to be a little more clever this time and not be single-minded and rely on Natasha (Kai).
The fifth-seeded Bulldogs got a goal from Kortney Lewis with 16 minutes left in the match to edge fourth-seeded Utah State 2-1 in the tournament opener yesterday.
Lewis' goal came at 74:15 off an assist from Antonea Lugo, who found Lewis at the top of the box with a pass. It was Lewis' third game-winning goal this year.
FSU (8-9-2) scored first when Andrea Alires knocked a corner kick into the net at 35:43.
The Aggies tied the match at 59:03 when Dana Peart scored off a pass from Rachelle Dixon.
In the other first-round match, third-seeded Nevada, in the tournament for the first time since starting a women's program in 2001, blanked host and sixth-seeded Boise State 3-0
The Wolf Pack (11-6-2) play second-seeded San Jose State (5-11-3) in today's second semifinal-round match.
Nevada jumped on the Broncos early. Samantha Miller got a ball in the drop zone behind the Boise defense from Annie Baxter and scored at 2:14.
Miranda Montejo's team-best ninth goal of the season upped the lead to 2-0 at 27:57 and Jessica Thompson's header at 58:56 closed out the scoring.
"Nevada was the most impressive team here today," Tenzing said. "The weather was terrific for the first game, but wet and cold for the second game."
Note: Hawaii senior defender Emily Rose has been named to the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VIII women's soccer second team. She has a 4.0 GPA while majoring in meteorology and minoring in math. Rose played in 15 of 19 matches with four starts this year.