Hawai’i take to road trying to continue strong conference start

HONOLULU – Get the fire extinguisher, the ‘Bows are blazing through the schedule again.

More than midway through the 2026 campaign, the University of Hawai’i women’s soccer team has pieced together a pair of three-game win streaks and stands tied for second place in the Mountain West with a month left in the regular season.

Battling through the challenges of a new conference, fresh travel routines and all the regular craziness of being a collegiate student-athlete, the Rainbow Wahine have taken off to another level through the team’s first 11 matches. Hawai’i hadn’t put together multiple win streaks of three or more games in a single season since 2007 – when the program won the WAC regular season and tournament titles.

The recipe for that success?

Continuity, correct choices from the portal and overall cohesive play.

Hawai’i saw 17 of the 19 players with eligibility remaining after last season come back to the islands for the 2026 campaign and added four players out of the transfer portal. Chip in seven freshmen that all have raised the competitive bar, and you’ve got a Rainbow Wahine squad that’s already passed last season’s win total with six games to play.

“I think to see all the seeds that we planted actually starting to grow and flourish and come to fruition, it’s been just especially rewarding for us as a staff,” head coach Michele “Bud” Nagamine told the media ahead of the team’s upcoming two-game road trip to California. “We’ve talked about these things and these situations and scenarios for so long.”

Of the eight different players that have scored goals for the Rainbow Wahine, four were on the team last year. The leading goal scorer for Hawai’i, Anuhea Aluli, came home in the transfer portal after spending the past few seasons at Oakland. The other three goal scorers are part of the freshman class that’s already made an immediate impact as if they came from the portal themselves.

The previous year presented challenges of all kinds for Hawai’i. From waiting for young players to develop with game action to waiting on others to recover from serious injuries, 2025 was a campaign of character growth as much as athletic progress for the Rainbow Wahine.

“There was almost a different group playing all the time, a different lineup, different starters,” Nagamine said regarding the past year’s team. “I think settling into the leadership that we have from our upperclassmen and that continuity and that predictability, so to speak, has been really good for the players and they’ve kind of just got into a groove.”

That groove has been aided by the uptick in goal scoring – Hawai’i has 21 goals in 11 matches this year versus 19 total goals in 20 matches last season – but it’s been hard to ignore the defense of the “No Goal Patrol” Rainbow Wahine.

After giving up the second-most goals per match in the conference during their final year in the Big West, Hawai’i has been among the stingiest defenses in the Mountain West this season with 0.91 goals allowed per game and six clean sheets.

The continued maturation of goalkeeper Kennedy Justin has spearheaded the effort as the junior has comfortably taken over the full-time starting job in the net. In 2025, Justin split goalkeeping duties and only saw four matches where she played the entire 90 minutes in the cage for the Rainbow Wahine.

“Kennedy has really just evolved and developed into a really good leader,” Nagamine said about her keeper. “I think she’s got that opportunity to really show what she can do because she is clearly our starting goalkeeper, and she just takes care of everybody … I think she brings the group together really nicely.”

Justin has started all 11 matches so far this season for Hawai’i, only exiting her post during the Rainbow Wahine’s 7-0 blowout victory against Hawaii Pacific University to provide some play time for freshman keeper Cora Bryant and senior transfer Izzy Palmatier.

 “To get the number of shutouts that we have this year is really an indication of the unity and the togetherness of our back line and our goalkeeper,” Nagamine said.

One of those shutouts kicked off the first three-game win streak for the Rainbow Wahine, blanking one of the Big Sky preseason favorites Idaho for the team’s first victory of the 2026 season. It sparked a four-match unbeaten run (three wins, one draw) to wrap up non-conference play.

Another came on the road against preseason Mountain West favorite Air Force to close out September, igniting the team’s current three-game win streak in which they’ve outscored opponents by a 7-1 margin. Hawai’i is still the only team that has kept Air Force out of the net for an entire match all season.

Nagamine, Justin and the rest of the Rainbow Wahine will look to keep that stretch of stingy defense going when they hit the road this week for a pair of matches in California.

San Jose State will be up first on Thursday, matching up with Hawai’i for the first time since 2011. After the clash with the Spartans, the Rainbow Wahine will head to much more familiar territory as the road trip wraps at UC Davis, who also moved from the Big West into the Mountain West ahead of the 2026 season.

“There is a lot to be said for that familiarity,” Nagamine admitted ahead of the road trip. “I think the familiarity of the trip is going to be really good for us. Yes, we have not played San Jose State [in a really long time], but I’m excited and I think the team is excited.”