KEAAU, Hawai`i—Hawai`i Hilo's Jesus Ortega picked a grand time to score his first goal of the season. And his second.

Ortega scored twice in the first half, and added an assist for good measure to help lead his Vulcans to a 3-0 upset win over Dominican on a rainy afternoon at Paiea Stadium.

The win was the first of the year for the Vulcans, who are now 1-10 in the Pacific West Conference and 1-13 overall. Dominican fell to 4-9-2 on the season and to 1-8-2 in conference play.

The celebrated victory snapped a 13-match skid for the Vulcans in 2017. It has been 26 matches since they last tasted victory, on September 17 last year during a 2-1 overtime win over Chaminade.

"I am not sure that a win has ever felt this good," said UHH head coach Gene Okamura after the match. "We have been fighting hard and the guys have never given up. The reward took a while to get here but it is well deserved for our players."

The first 20 minutes were played pretty evenly on the wet turf at Kamehameha School. The Vulcans had missed a golden opportunity five minutes into the match when Ortega worked his way free and had an open goal but his shot still found the arm of Penguin goalkeeper Christian Lathrop.

At the halfway point of the first half, everything changed—in the match, and in UH Hilo's season.

Ortega, a sophomore from San Bernardino, took a pass from Jonathan Garcia about 30 yards from the goal. He dribbled in, beat defenders and the keeper, popping the ball into the net, giving the home team a 1-0 lead.

The Vulcans have had three other 1-0 leads this season, and just a few moments later when Dominican had a point blank penalty kick to potentially tie the contest, it looked like the lead might be short lived again.

But senior keeper Cassidy Dixon made a brilliant diving save of Bryan Juarez's kick, preserving the lead, and firing up his teammates.

It might have sparked the Vulcans to what happened next. Ortega dribbled towards the goal again, but this time dished off to Bryan Reynoso who knocked it in from seven yards out in the 31^st minute. That was Reynoso's fourth goal of the year and Ortega's third assist and it gave UH Hilo their largest lead of the season.

But they weren't done.

Five minutes later, it was Ortega again, this time on a give-and-go with Bradley Doyle. Ortega fed Doyle, who gave it right back to Ortega, who flicked it past Lathrop. The three goals in first half was the most that the Vulcans had scored since their final match of the 2016 season, a 3-3 tie to Holy Names.

In the second half, both teams had about a half dozen shots, but neither could find the net again.

Dixon, playing in just his third match of the season, had his first shutout since 2015. He had seven saves in the match and a number of other clutch defensive plays behind his stellar defenders.

Both teams finished with 15 shots in the match. Dominican had six corner kicks, UH Hilo had two.

"We've been so close so many times this year," Okamura added. "We are a better team than our record. Today, it was nice to put it all together on offense and defense and get the win."

The Vulcans have two matches left on the slate—a Monday night encounter with Fresno Pacific (7 pm) and a Saturday Senior Day match-up with Chaminade (3 pm).