Hawaii Rainbow Wahine soccer coach Pinsoom Tenzing deviated from the normal strategy of building an offense using short passes up field against No. 5 UCLA in front of a crowd of 823 at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Park Stadium yesterday. Tenzing takes a chance,
but Bruins just too good
By Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.comInstead, the Wahine gave the talented Bruins their half of the field, packed the defensive end and banked on an upset last night by scoring a quick-strike goal using the long ball.
The change did not work. The Bruins won the Outrigger Hotels & Resorts Soccer Classic with a 2-0 victory on second-half goals by Sarah-Gayle Swanson and Nandi Pryce.
"Our approach was completely different. We wanted to mark up really tight in our half of the field which we're not very good at and we were trying to counter attack by minimizing touches on the ball and using long balls. Short balls were taboo," said Tenzing.
The idea was to use the big drop zone behind the UCLA defenders, usually near midfield, for a breakaway. The result was one UH shot on goal, in the 74th minute by Arlene Devitt from 35 yards out.
The Bruins spent the first 45 minutes working the ball from left to right and back, probing the UH defense with numerous offensive thrusts.
Lindsay Greco and Swanson made runs down the right side in the first five minutes and sent dangerous crossing passes into the middle near the goal line. At 10:11, Swanson took a through ball from Kim Devine and raced in on UH goalkeeper Mahie Atay, only to have the freshman from Baldwin High School stuff the shot attempt with a diving save at Swanson's feet.
Bruin midfielders Allie True, Whitney Jones and Stacy Lindstrom, with timely help from defender Kathryn Lee moving up on the left side, dominated control of the middle.
Hawaii's long-ball, hope-and-pray offense posed no threat to the UCLA net. The Wahine did not get a first-half shot off.
The Bruins put five of their 11 first-half shots on goal.
UCLA (4-1) scored early in the second half compliments of a faulty Wahine clearing pass from just outside the left corner of the penalty box. The ball went right to Whitney Jones who pushed the ball to Swanson. She split the UH defense, faked a kick that forced Atay to dive, then calmly drove the ball into the empty net at 49:48.
UH (1-4-1) had an excellent chance to equalize in the 65th minute when Devitt crossed the ball from the left side over all of the UCLA defenders to a waiting Natasha Kai, but her left-footed shot from 11 yards away rolled harmless past the right post.
UCLA made it 2-0 at 67:11 when Pryce raced up field, got a quick pass off a restart and unloaded a wicked shot from 20 yards out just left of the arc on top of the box that found the corner where the crossbar and right post meet.
"We talked about guarding against the quick restart at halftime," said Tenzing.
UH Athletics
