[ UH SOCCER ]
Tenzing happy with
team’s overall production
The 2003 Hawaii women's soccer team had a banner season, but the banner the Wahine wanted most -- the one that says WAC Champions -- eluded them once again.
The 13 victories are a single-season record. Numerous other team and individual marks were broken as the 10th anniversary team, the best in school history, rewrote the record book.
The Wahine won seven league games, the most ever, to earn a first-round bye in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament, but failed to make use of that advantage. The shellacking -- UH coach Pinsoom Tenzing's word -- Rice administered to UH in the semifinals still vexes Tenzing but does not detract from the overall season.
"I have mostly good thoughts about the season, but I can't help thinking we could have achieved a little bit more," he said. "We had a really tremendous team.
"I think we did everything right going into the WAC Tournament. We were well-rested and had three superlative practices before playing. The players were so on it, with crisp passing and superb ball movement, The day before, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, 'Save some for tomorrow.'
"As fate would have it, there was rain all day and we couldn't play on a wet turf. Rice was far superior. They were more committed to air balls and when we tried to stay on the ground in the second half, we couldn't move the ball."
Hawaii finished with a 13-5-2 record. Both ties and all five losses, including the opener against Arizona State, were against teams that had a .500 or better record. Just three of the Wahine wins were posted over teams with a .500 record or better.
Regarding other defeats, the Wahine allowed early and easy goals to ASU and Southern Methodist that proved too much to overcome, had a bad game against Cornell and fell into a tactical mindset of trying to protect an early 2-0 lead in the tie with Brigham Young instead of continuing to play attacking soccer. A win in either of those latter two matches might have been enough for UH to receive an NCAA Tournament at-large berth.
"I don't think the NCAA considers the toughness of our schedule, playing three matches in four days on road trips. That's a lot different than playing twice a week," Tenzing said. "But, we had cancellations from prospective visitors to Hawaii and tacked on a Monday game on the road. We had to do it Monday so as to not keep kids away from school."
At one point last summer, the UH schedule was down to 15 matches and the NCAA allows 20 during the regular season.
The Wahine were solid on all three lines. Natasha Kai, Arlene Devitt and Robyn deHay accounted for 40 of the school single-season record 51 goals and 20 of the 44 assists. Devitt and deHay won't return, but the leading candidates to fill those spots are Krisha Kai, if she is fully recovered from knee surgery, and redshirt Koren Takeyama.
Tenzing will be looking to replace departing senior Mia Moe at center midfield with present team members or possibly a recruit.
"That was one of our strengths, the number of players we have who can play the middle of the field," Tenzing said.
The team's defenders, including starting backs Jessica Uecker, Krystalynn Ontai and Liz Lusk along with starting goalkeeper Mahie Atay and backup Erin Chow, all return.
"I think our commitment to balls in the air has to improve tenfold next year,"Tenzing said. "If we wait for the ball to bounce, we will always be second and we will have bad games.
"The success of this team was because we could spring strikers into the open. And we still were able to push the ball around, something we did better than we did in 2002."
Tenzing will continue to schedule one mainland trip prior to league play.
"That is imperative just to see how the team is going to travel," said Tenzing.
Next year's nonconference schedule is tentatively set to primarily feature West Coast teams that have had solid seasons in 2003.
