GEORGE LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM As good as Natasha Kai is at scoring, her coach wants her to play better defense on the team's current road trip.

Wahine hit the road

Most coaches view the season's first road trip as an opportunity to gauge team unity, find out how well the first-year players travel and how the team deals with hostile crowds.

Hawaii soccer coach Pinsoom Tenzing gets that chance this week as the Rainbow Wahine (0-1-1) play three quality opponents in UC Santa Barbara (1-1) tomorrow, Southern California (1-1) Friday and Loyola Marymount (1-1) Sunday.

The Hawaii defense was solid in last week's matches although a basic mistake in ball control in each game cost the Wahine a goal.

The offense sputtered, in part due to a lack of familiarity among the players with each other's moves and anticipating those moves. Too often a striker would hold the ball, back to the goal, and not be able to turn on the defender with success. A crisp one-two pass with a midfielder can solve that problem if the receiver's moves are read right or the receiver anticipates the return pass correctly.

Tenzing says this will come with time but hesitated to say when.

The Wahine outshot last weekend's opponents 39-24, but managed just one goal.

"We have some veterans (Natasha Kai and Robyn deHay) who can score goals, but they don't play defense. Part of it is they are not in shape and they have the mindset that 'I score goals and don't have to play defense,' " Tenzing said. "That makes the work for the rest of the team extremely difficult. The dilemma is the younger ones (strikers) are playing defense.

"I can sense Natasha is still hurting, but it is difficult to get through to these kids that the conference games are more important. They all still want to play."

Right midfielder Natalie Groenewoud is doubtful for tomorrow's match. Defender Liz Lusk (ankle), Krystalynn (charley horse) Ontai are questionable and center midfielder Jessica Domingo is limping.

All three opponents split their weekend matches.

The Gauchos, picked to finish fifth in the Big West Conference, started their season on the road by beating Oregon 2-0, then losing to Oregon State 2-1 in overtime. UCSB has nine starters back.

The Trojans played in the Nike Seminole Classic last weekend. They edged Rhode Island 3-2, then lost to host and No. 5-ranked Florida State 2-1.

USC returns eight starters from a team that tied for third in the Pac-10 a year ago and qualified for the NCAA tournament.

The Lions defeated Western Athletic Conference member Nevada 3-0 to open their season, then lost to No. 10 UCLA 2-1 Sunday. Coach Greg Murphy has seven starters among his 18 returning players, but, for the first time in several seasons, there are no Hawaii players on the LMU roster.

LMU also has a match Friday against Rutgers.

In the series with each opponent, Hawaii is 1-2 vs. UCSB, 1-1 against USC and 1-3-1 vs. LMU.