HILO, Hawai'i – The hot start to the season continued as Hawai'i Hilo Men's Soccer defeated visiting HPU, 1-0, for its third consecutive shutout in a non-conference matchup at the Vulcan Soccer Field.
Vulcans goalkeeper Christian Siouza had just two saves on record, but the fifth-year senior made a handful of clutch stops down the stretch to keep his ninth-career shutout intact. Souza is now tied for the program's all-time shutouts mark with Ivan Mercado (08-09).
Through three games, Hawai'i Hilo has yet to allow an opposing score through the net.
"It was another team win. Defensively, we have a lot of courage in all of our players in terms of what's required to keep the ball out of the net," Vulcans second-year head coach Diego Marroquin said. "It's important that we reflect on our three matches but keep our feet on the ground and stay humble. We've not reached the level from last year, in my opinion. I think we still have a ways to go to surpass those performance levels. We're just focused on improving game by game."
The lone score of the match came just a few minutes into the first half. Kanata Taira sent a cross from deep in the left-corner pocket and connected with Felix Drizinsky's noggin. The header attempt was stopped by the HPU goalkeeper, but Gabriel Gallardo flushed the ball in for the eighth-minute score.
"One thing I remembered was like in the first 30 seconds when Xavi had a header and their free kicks were a bit shaky," Gallardo said. "I had a good feeling that the second ball was going to be on, so when Felix got a good piece on the header I just figured, 'why not just be prepared for that second ball?' and I was just all over it."
The Vulcans' 3-0 start to the season is by far the best in program history. Despite Wednesday's match being a non-conference tilt, Hawai'i Hilo is also coming off as defending PacWest Hawai'i Challenge winners — a year-long competition between the three Division-II Hawai'i schools.
"Every time we step on the pitch with HPU, we know it's going to be a tough game," Marroquin said. "They're well-coached so we were fortunate to be on the right side of the result this time. We love having the opportunity to compete against a great program like HPU."
"We know HPU games are just not going to be easy ... it's called a bit of a rivalry so we get after it with each other," Gallardo said. "We knew we had to get the result if we want to be possibly nationally or regionally ranked. We got the result. We move on to Western Oregon."
UP NEXT
Hawai'i Hilo moved to 3-0-0 (0-0-0 Pacific West Conference) while HPU starts the season at 0-2-0 (0-0-0 PacWest).
The Vulcans will head to the Pacific Northwest to take on Western Oregon next Monday, Sept. 16. Hawai'i Hilo will then head south to California for matchups with Cal State Monterey Bay (Sept. 19) and Cal Poly Humboldt (Sept. 21).
Next home game will be the PacWest Conference opener against Academy of Art on Oct. 1.
AMONG THE BEST IN THE WEST
In the first United Soccer Coaches Top 25 released on Tuesday, Hawai'i Hilo was marked as receiving votes in the national poll while landing at No. 5 in the West Region.
The next poll will be released Sept. 17.
