Hawaii’s college golf teams, with a few individual exceptions, had not scared anyone this fall season. Then came Halloween.

In the comfort of the grainy greens and Waikoloa breezes of home, the University of Hawaii Hilo bolted into the national spotlight. Hilo’s Jared Kinoshita set a school scoring record and teammate Taylor Patrick chased him home to help UH Hilo win its Dennis Rose Intercollegiate last Wednesday.

The Vulcans, No. 71 in the latest Golfstat rankings, and Kinoshita did not just win. They shocked some of the top teams in NCAA Division II.

Kinoshita, who barely missed qualifying for regionals last season, fired a school record-tying 7-under-par 65 in the opening round. He followed up with 72-68 to break Nick Mason’s school record of 10 under.

Patrick took second, only four back — and four ahead of his closest pursuers. Andrew Otani, a freshman out of ‘Iolani, tied for 25th.

Hilo was seven shots better than second-ranked Western Washington, a team that had already won three times this fall. UHH also beat sixth- and seventh-ranked Dixie and Sonoma State. Hawaii Pacific took 10th and Chaminade 14th.

“This was a great week for us,” said Hilo head coach Earl Tamiya. “We have a long way to go, but now we have very attainable goals to work towards while contending for the Pacific West Conference championship and qualifying for the NCAA West/South Regional tournament.”

Kinoshita, a senior from Bakersfield, Calif., felt everything “went according to plan” with “more than one player golfing well on the same day” … finally.

Now, the Vulcans have three months to savor their surprise victory, and work on maintaining their mojo.

“It’s kinda crazy to think about … difficult to wrap your head around, which is a good thing,” Kinoshita says. “Three teams ranked in the national top 10 and being able to play the way we did and come out on top. Other than us, no one thought we had a chance of winning.”

Tamiya is in his 28th season. His teams have won four PacWest championships and had fourth- and fifth-place national finishes in 2004 and ‘05, when Mason — a Leilehua grad — finished in the top four individually.

Winning this year at Waikoloa might rank right up there, because it came out of nowhere. Hilo’s best finish before last week was seventh, while Kinoshita had a pair of top-15 finishes.

“I hadn’t seen him (Tamiya) that happy in awhile and it was really nice,” Kinoshita says. “He was … not mellow, but he had happier thoughts. He made us upbeat.”

Tamiya was upbeat and typically straightforward three years ago when he brought in Kinoshita, who had little on his resume aside from high school results, which most coaches barely look at these days.

Kinoshita wasn’t talking with any coach seriously when Tamiya called him in class one day and said simply: “I’m going to offer you a scholarship and you going come.”

He met the team at a tournament in San Diego, took an unofficial visit to Hilo on his own and was taken in by his new teammates and Hilo’s “laid back” atmosphere, so far removed from the resorts. He and Patrick, a junior from Canada, have been voted “Pono Vulcan” the last two years by their teammates, for being so, well … pono.

Kinoshita is absolutely clear on the priorities in the spring.

“Making the regionals is goal No. 1, top of the list, bold and all in caps,” he says. “That was on my list of goals before the season and that’s on top of the list because of what happened last year. Then it’s nationals, hopefully.”

Kinoshita points to this past summer playing with professionals in Bakersfield as a huge help to his game. He thrived on the constant competition and learned “not so much intensity, but a passion to be better at everything else,” he recalls. “I took everything so seriously and they made me realize the intensity I needed to be competitive at a high level all the time, but also be relaxed.”

The University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine “hosted” the Pac-12 Preview at Nanea this week, competing against all the teams in that conference, including four ranked in the nation’s top 14.

Their highest team finish this fall was fifth at last week’s rain-abbreviated Rainbow Wahine Invitational, where sophomore Sahara Washington took sixth. Junior Megan Ratcliffe tied for fourth at the Hobble Creek Classic in September. Kaci Masuda is the only senior on the team.

Hawaii Pacific’s women were 11th at last week’s Rainbow Wahine Invitational and opened the season with a fourth at St. Martins. The Hilo women were 12th last week and sixth at St. Martins.

The UH men don’t have a top-10 finish this fall, but they have had top-15 individual finishes from Baldwin grads Justin Ngan and Justin Arcano.

The Rainbows and Vulcans next play Feb. 7-9 in the Amer Ari Intercollegiate at Waikoloa.