Rainbow Wahine open
WAC by beating Rice
In a well-played, tightly contested soccer match between Western Athletic Conference title contenders, the Hawaii Rainbow Wahine edged the Rice Owls 1-0 last night in the league opener for both teams in front of 832 fans at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Park Stadium.
This was the best match from end to end the Wahine (8-2-1) have played at home this year. The defense, with Jessica Uecker providing leadership from the center, limited the Owls (7-2-2) to seven shots. The biggest help came from the play of the midfielders, especially center mids Seline Williams and Jessica Domingo.
The Wahine broke the scoreless deadlock at 57:56 when Natasha Kai got a pass from Krystalynn Ontai in the middle of the field about 40 yards from the goal. Kai flicked the ball forward to onrushing sister Krisha Kai, who one-timed a hard shot from 23 yards away on the ground just inside the right post.
"I was going for the near post. It was cool when the crowd yelled," said Krisha Kai.
Kai's goal, her second of the season, was only the fourth allowed by Rice in 11 matches.
UH coach Pinsoom Tenzing told his team before the match that this was going to be a hard match, that this would be Texas soccer with hard, fair tackling.
"I thought our midfielders did a tremendous job of playing soccer and springing our forwards up front," said Tenzing. "It is the first time we played like a team. Our defense was exquisite and we didn't fall into a defensive mode at the end. We continued to play offensive soccer.
UH had two opportunities in the first five minutes.
The first corner kick of the game at 1:59 by Ontai from the right found Natasha Kai's head, but her shot was outside the near post by a couple of feet. With 4:45 gone, Domingo pushed the ball forward to Kai in the box, but Rice goalkeeper Lauren Shockley saved the 15-foot attempt.
The Wahine controlled much of the play for the first 25 minutes with aggressive tracking of the ball and quick passes. The Owls' first good chance came at 27:17, when Samantha Conn worked the ball inside on the left and angled a pass back to Clory Martin in the middle. Martin shot wide. A minute later, Conn received a through ball and sent a hard ground shot back toward the right post that UH goalkeeper Erin Chow saved with a diving stop to her left.
Kai had another header off an Ontai corner kick from the right sail wide of the left post at 41:17.
The Owls had a great chance at 50:48 when Chow was caught 20 yards outside the box trying to unsuccessfully clear a long ball forward. Martin picked up the loose ball, dribbled once, but put her shot wide left of the open goal.
Chow had to make only two saves in recording the shutout.
The Wahine, who outshot Rice 17-7, have won four consecutive WAC openers and are 4-4-1 in them. Rice has yet to win a conference opener in four attempts.
Hawaii next plays Tulsa tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Waipio.
Note: Mahie Atay, UH's junior goalkeeper, suffered her second concussion of the season and will not play this weekend. It happened in practice Wednesday.
