Hawai'i Hilo Vulcans Athletics

Photo of Vulcan goalkeeper Michael Harre taken by Joe Poellot/Story by Russ Blunck

HILO, Hawai`i--As UH Hilo men's soccer head coach Paul Regrutto continues to build his program and the culture that he wants, winning big matches at the end of the season likely on his goal list.

The Vulcans did just that on Thursday afternoon, upsetting recent conference title hopeful Hawai`i Pacific 3-0 at the George and Marion Hall Stadium on the UHH campus. The win improved to UHH's record to 5-7-1 overall and to 3-5-1 in the Pacific West Conference. Hawaii Pacific, who was in first place in the PacWest just one week ago, is now 6-2-2 in conference action and 8-6-2 on the year. It was their final match of the season. The Sharks had won five straight matches before today's loss to the Vulcans.

"It was a good win," said head coach Paul Regrutto. "I think we deserved to win like this multiple times this year though. Part of the frustration for us is that we've played well so many times but haven't gotten the result. I honestly feel that our record doesn't represent the team that we are." 

UH Hilo will close out the 2021 season on Saturday with a 2:30 pm match against Chaminade.

The Vulcans won the physical match by getting two scores in the first half and trusting their defense after that. In all, they had three goals, all from players scoring their first counters of the season. 

"We were able to play a bunch of guys that have worked very hard this year," continued Regrutto. "Those guys have supported the team all year long, even when they weren't playing. It was awesome to get those guys on the field and have everybody cheering for them. Those were three great goals that we deserved on so many different levels."

In the 13th minute, the home squad used a goal by Devan Yoshimura to get on the board first. Yoshimura took a pass from Waturo Muto and fired it into the lower right corner of the goal. Additionally, right before the end of the half, Tommy Seaver picked up a loose ball after a Tom Vorkastner shot banked off a HPU defender, and fired it into the net for a 2-0 margin at halftime. UH Hilo had three total shots at the break (two on goal) and HPU had four (three on goal).

Action was a plenty in the second half despite not a lot of shots tallied in the stat column. The Vulcans added big insurance though at 67:23 when Julian Garcia fought off two defenders on his hip to flip a shot into the upper right hand corner of the net to make it 3-0. The Vulcans continued to play stellar defense from there to secure the upset win and record their first clean sheet of the season.

Michael Harre nailed down his first shutout of the year, finishing with six saves on the afternoon. He faced nine total shots on the day. UH Hilo finished with seven shots of the day, five on goal. HPU had nine shots, six of them on goal. 

Hawaii Pacific had 15 fouls in the fiesty rivalry match, UH Hilo had eight. HPU had four yellow cards, the Vulcans had one.