SAN RAFAEL, Calif.—Vulcan senior midfielder
Curtis Walker and freshman
Devan Yoshimura picked very opportune and memorable times to score their first goals of their Hawai`i Hilo careers during a 3-2 road win over Dominican on Monday afternoon at Kennelly Field.
Walker broke a 2-2 tie moments into the second half (46:45), taking a pass from
Alen Acosta in the box and beating the Penguin goalkeeper with a shot into the upper right-hand corner of the goal to score what would turn out to be the winning goal.
The win was UH Hilo's fourth of the season (4-10) and improved their Pacific West Conference mark to 3-6. Dominican dropped to 5-8-2 overall and to 2-5-1 in conference play.
Walker's shot ended the scoring on the day during a battle that featured plenty of goals early in the match. The encounter also featured the first collegiate score of Yoshimura's career, a school record-tying score by
Matt Wilkinson and a UHH school mark bettered by goalkeeper
Nick Williams.
But it all started in favor of host Dominican. The Penguins scored just eight minutes into the match in a way that was very familiar to them. Wilson Briggs scored his 13
th goal of the season by dribbling past three Vulcan defenders and flicking the ball with his left foot into the right corner of the net to make it 1-0 Penguins.
The Vulcans answered very quickly. Just past the 11
th minute mark, Yoshimura received a pass from
Gabriel Contreras in the box and shot it past Penguin keeper Ruben Raygoza into the right corner of the goal to even things up at 1-1.
Less than ten minutes later (19:55) Diego Vasquez gave the lead back to the Penguins with a score (2-1), but Wilkinson evened things up in the 34
th minute after stealing a pass and firing it in past the near post. It was Wilkinson's tenth goal of the season, tying the single-season record for goals now shared with Dustin Daley (2007). Wilkinson, a junior from England, also has 20 points, tied for second with Daley's 2007 total, and three points shy of Daley's 2008 record of 23 points.
After the wild first 45 minutes, the Vulcans had eight shots (three on goal), while Dominican had similar numbers of seven shots, three of them saved by Williams.
Walker continued the fireworks almost immediately in the second half to give the Vulcans a 3-2 lead, and most at Kennelly Field just assumed that the scoring rush would continue. The shooting did, as the Penguins fired off 12 shots in the second half, seven of them on goal and UHH had four more attempts, three on goal.
But none of those launches translated to scores. Dominican finished with 19 shots, ten on goal and eight saved by Williams. The Vulcans had 12 shots, six of them on goal.
Williams now has 78 saves on the season, a UH Hilo record. His two-season save mark of 127 is also now a UHH career record, surpassing Marc Fournier's total of 120.
It will be a memorable day for Walker, a two-year starter who had an assist two years ago but had never scored a college goal. For both he and Yoshimura, it was only their third shots of the season, but they certainly figured out how to make them count.
The Vulcans will continue this road swing and season with a Thursday match at Notre Dame de Namur and a Saturday finale at Fresno Pacific.
