Mana Wahine Wednesday: Hawaii women’s soccer midfielder Nalani Damacion

HONOLULU – According to MyNameStats.com, the United States is estimated to have less than 550 people named Nalani.

More than half of them are from Hawaii.

Doesn’t that mean it was only right that Nalani Damacion to ended up in the islands?

The University of Hawai’i women’s soccer star was born to be unique. It was her mom’s plan all along, apparently.

“My sister’s name is Malia, so it was already unique,” the Rainbow Wahine sophomore midfielder said. “[My mom] kinda wanted a unique theme for all of us. I also have a brother, his name’s Javen.”

Pregnant with a girl while on a family trip to Maui, Damacion’s mother stopped into a jewelry store. Just browsing, her mom’s eyes brushed across six letters and suddenly had her name for that soon-to-be-here baby girl.

Nalani.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Damacion started playing soccer around four years old, following in the footsteps of her older sister. That was commonplace for the middle child of three kids, practically copying anything that Malia did.

“Whatever she did, I was going to try,” Damacion recalled when asked about her journey to the pitch. “I started with just playing with her. I did like it, but it wasn’t like an automatic love.”

Still, she enjoyed soccer more than any other sport she tried. Softball especially was a no go.

“I did not like wearing all the gear,” she chuckled.

Her love for the beautiful game grew as she continued her career. By fourth grade, Damacion knew she wanted to play soccer at higher levels, all the way until she was told she couldn’t anymore.

She moonlighted as a center back to begin her career, patrolling the last line of defense before the goalkeeper as one of the tallest and most athletic players on the team. It wasn’t long until coaches tried to move her to the front line as she found herself sneaking up to the attack already.

Eventually, Damacion settled into the midfield for the perfect mix of helping up and down the pitch. Her newfound position only showed off her talents more, allowing for rapid development as she settled into a home on the field.

Easily the top player amongst her peers, Damacion needed a new challenge to help improve her in-game execution. Already used to playing with her older sister, she would go on to play a classification above her own until she was in high school.

Damacion piqued the interest of colleges quickly. The multitalented midfielder remembers coaches appearing on the margins at games as early as her eighth-grade year, seeing programs (including Hawaii) start to take down notes as she approached eligible recruiting years.

“Obviously, we can’t talk to them until our, like, junior year,” Damacion explained. “I would get the emails of like ‘come to our camps’ but not like [asking] hey, how’s it going?”

Suddenly, the date came where contact between schools and recruits was finally permitted and Damacion’s phone started to buzz, non-stop. Calls, offers and more from a multitude of schools flooded her inbox as she considered where she would next call home for her academic and athletic career.

Without a pre-determined  “dream school” she wanted to attend, Damacion took her time with the recruiting process. The midfielder put together lists of which programs she could see herself being a part of while starting to eliminate options that didn’t compute in her head.

Hawaii was among the schools to reach out on that opening day of her recruitment, sending emails while getting Damacion on phone calls with both head coach Michele “Bud” Nagamine and associate head coach Kaula Rowe.

“I just loved their vibe,” recalled Damacion of her early impressions of the UH coaching staff. “Right away, I might not even know them but they’re going to make me feel like I’ve known them for my whole entire life.”

All it took was one visit with the program for Hawaii to feel like home for Damacion.

“It was some kind of connection that you cannot describe,” she remembered.

The connection caused Damacion to break what she thought was one of her deal breakers. Throughout her entire process, the Rocklin (CA) native vowed to be within driving distance of home so that she had easy access to her family whenever she pleased.

“Obviously, I came here, and plans changed and now they have to make a five-hour flight,” Damacion chuckled.

Rainbow Wahine fans are happy that those plans changed.

Damacion burst onto the scene in 2024, turning in one of the greatest freshman seasons in program history as she appeared in 20 matches (19 starts) and scored a team-high seven goals in her first campaign for UH. All seven goals were game-winners, matching the highest mark by any freshman player in the country for match-deciding scores since the 2015 season.

She even provided the most important goal of the regular season, scoring in the 83rd minute of UH’s Big West regular season title-clinching road victory over UC Santa Barbara on October 27. It was the fourth and final game-winner for Damacion that came in the final 10 minutes of a contest last year.

“That’s where the fire is going to start,” the midfielder said of her mindset during the final 10 minutes of a match. “I’m going to play until I’m dead on the floor.”

Her heroics (along with many others on the Rainbow Wahine roster) helped the program secure the first Big West regular season crown ever and first regular season conference title since 2007.

Damacion added five All-Big West Freshman of the Week awards, an All-Freshman team selection and an All-Big West First Team nod in her debut season at the college level. If that wasn’t enough, the freshman superstar also became the first player in UH program history to win Big West Midfielder of the Year honors in the 20 years of the award being handed out.

As she traverses through her sophomore campaign, Damacion feels the pressure that has mounted after a massive freshman year. That outside weight is nothing new for her.

“For me, there’s been pressure my whole life in soccer,” the sophomore midfielder said. “It’s just how am I going to deal with it? … I think right now I’m doing really well with it. I’m focusing on this season … I think if I stay true to me and how I play, it’s going to be amazing.”

With a year under her belt to add to the comfort, Damacion is primed to show out as the Rainbow Wahine protect their conference crown. For the whole program, the hunger to win only grew more after last season’s successes.

“We’re ready to win [and] we’re ready to show people why we won [the Big West title] the first time,” Damacion added.

Hawaii (1-2-1) returns to action on Thursday, August 28 when they host Northern Arizona for a non-conference contest at 7 p.m. HT at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium. The Rainbow Wahine went 1-1 in last weekend’s OUTRIGGER Soccer Kickoff, taking down Central Arkansas while falling to Oregon.