Hawaii dominates Big West soccer awards | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

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The Rainbow Wahine soccer team came away with a haul in the Big West postseason honors on Saturday, winning four individual awards and earning seven all-conference selections and three all-freshman honorees.

After leading Hawaii to the regular-season title, coach Michele Nagamine was named the Big West Coach of the Year, the second time she has earned the honor in her career.

Nalani Damacion was named Midfielder of the Year, while Kennedy Justin was named the Goalkeeper of the Year and Jacey Jicha earned Defensive Player of the Year.

Damacion is the first player from Hawaii to earn Big West Midfielder of the Year honors, and the first freshman to earn the award in its 20 years. She also set a Big West record by earning Freshman of the Week honors five times. Damacion tied for the national lead with seven game-winning goals, the most by a freshman since 2015 and tied for the most in a season for UH with Natasha Kai and Tiana Fujimoto.

Justin is the second player from UH to receive Goalkeeper of the Year, joining Alexis Mata in 2019, as well as the first freshman in Big West history to receive the award in 22 years of its existence. She set program records this season with 11 wins, and five consecutive shutouts, going 496 straight minutes without allowing a goal.

Jicha is the first Rainbow Wahine to be named Defensive Player of the Year in the Big West, and the third to do so in any conference in program history, joining Nicole Mikula (2008) and Tehane Higa (2007), who did so as members of the WAC.

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Damacion, Justin and Alice Davidson earned all-freshman honors, while Jicha joined Damacion and Justin on the All-Big West first team, marking the first time since 2019 that Hawaii has placed three players on the first team. Davidson and Brynn Mitchell received second-team honors, while Amber Gilbert and Cate Sheahan were given honorable mentions.

The seven total all-conference honorees are the most for Hawaii since joining the Big West, and tied for the most in school history with the 2007 team that had seven players receive All-WAC honors.