The University of Hawai‘i soccer team suffered a 2-1 loss in double overtime of the Mountain West semifinals to Wyoming on Wednesday in Phoenix.
In its Mountain West tournament debut, the 3-seeded Rainbow Wahine scored first on Pana‘ewa "Jas" Cayetano's free kick goal in the 49th minute.
Wyoming scored the equalizer 10 minutes later on an Addison Keen goal.
With the Rainbow Wahine and Cowgirls deadlocked on a 1-1 draw after the 90 minutes of regulation, the 'Bows went to overtime for the first time all season. Two 10-minute overtime periods were to be played, then a penalty shootout if a golden goal was not scored within that timeframe.
With just a little over a minute remaining in double overtime, Wyoming won the game on Reese Gould's goal. Many members of the UH squad got on the ground in despair.
"They kept fighting and fighting until the end. And for that, I'm just really grateful," Hawai‘i head coach Michele Nagamine said in a postgame call. "It really does say a lot about the kind of people that we have and that never say die attitude that we talk about all the time. We put together a game today. I mean, we moved the ball so well. Jazz Cayetano came up huge off that set piece. So yeah, it hurts. I'm absolutely ripped up inside for the kids because I thought that they deserved to win today. I thought that we had a really good gameplan that they executed to the nines, and then it just didn't go our way. So, I'm absolutely gutted for them."
Hawai‘i closes out its 2026 campaign 9-7-2 overall. In its inaugural season in the Mountain West Conference, the Rainbow Wahine went 6-3-1. After beginning Mountain West play with a 2-0 loss at Colorado College, the Rainbow Wahine rattled off six straight victories to ultimately earn a spot in the four-team tournament and came agonizingly close to earning a bid in the championship match. Among Colorado College, Air Force and Wyoming, Hawai‘i was the only team based outside of altitude to make the conference tournament.
"One of the the best things for me is that we had no idea what to expect at the beginning of the year, and it's hard enough to do road trips when you're going to California or Seattle, places that we go to quite often. But to add in another leg sometimes, a two-flight trip and just be able to see how they responded to all of the challenges that were put in front of them, I thought we made a definite statement in the Mountain West to be the only team outside of the highest altitude teams to be in the tournament," Nagamine said.
"That's something that we are very, very proud of, and I think this first year for us, we really didn't know what to expect, and now that we've had a chance to go through it, I think our preparation will be better next year. I thought our preparation was good this year, but I think now that we know what we know, we may be able to make things a little bit easier on ourselves next year, just because we now know what to expect. I don't know how to travel to UTEP. I don't know how to travel to New Mexico, but we'll figure those things out just like we did with Colorado and Wyoming."
Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
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