FRESNO, Calif.--The Vulcans' valiant fight to claim a Pacific West Conference victory came just one goal short during a 2-1 loss to Fresno Pacific on Thursday night at Ramirez Field.

It certainly wasn't for lack of effort. Trailing by a goal over the final 20+ minutes of the match, Hawai`i Hilo had four good opportunities to find the scoreboard again, including two in the final two minutes, but they came up just short.

The Sunbirds improved to 7-7-3 overall with the victory and are now 6-4-2 in conference play, tied for fifth place. UHH drops to 1-14-1 on the season and to 0-11-1 in the PacWest. Coach Gene Okamura's squad will have one final opportunity for a victory in 2016 on Saturday when they take on Holy Names in Oakland.

Playing under the lights, the hosts got on the board first in the 37th minute when Jorge Chedraui headed in a shot past UHH keeper Cassidy Dixon. That 1-0 lead would hold into the halftime break.

But the Vulcans tied the match in the second half when Rodrigo Castellanos pushed in a shot while in the box in the 61st minute, with help from Jake Sagami and Edward Torrison. Nonetheless, the Sunbirds answered five minutes later with what would prove to be the game winner on a score by Eric Sanchez. 

The Vulcans went down swinging. Daniel Baumgartner had a shot blocked in the box in the 72nd minute. Sagami had a shot that had to be saved three minutes later. At 88:17, Jesus Ortega had a shot in the box that was blocked and with less than a minute to play Sagami hit the crossbar from close range.

Dixon gave up two goals but also had a season-high 11 saves on a busy night for him. Fresno Pacific had 19 shots in the match, 13 of them on goal. Hawai`i Hilo had 11 shots, many of they in the second half, five of them on goal.