The Hawaii soccer team at times came tantalizingly close to pulling off a meaningful road result, but in the end fell 2-1 to Cal Poly in both teams’ Big West Conference opener Friday night in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

UH (7-2-1 overall) outshot the Mustangs 20-9 — midfielder Raisa Strom-Okimoto matched Cal Poly’s shot count herself — but the hosts came out on top thanks to a 17th-minute penalty kick and a 69th-minute counterattack down the middle.

The Rainbow Wahine had four shots carom off the Cal Poly crossbar as they dropped to 0-5 in Big West openers.

“It was a little bit hard to swallow because I felt we had the run of play,” UH coach Michele Nagamine said in a postgame phone interview. “We really kind of dominated the match, but at the end you have to score goals.”

Strom-Okimoto scored UH’s goal on a free kick low rocket blast from about 30 yards out in the 33rd minute, tying it up 1-1. It was her team-best fifth goal of the season.

“We had a game plan — we went out and moved the ball around,” Nagamine said. “I thought the kids did a very good job. We had two breakdowns and they capitalized. We’re going to learn from this.”

The Wahine have little time to shake it off. They head down the Central California coast to play UC Santa Barbara (9-1-1) at 11 a.m. Sunday. The Gauchos are fresh, as they had a bye Thursday.

UH fell to 0-7 all-time against Cal Poly (6-5-1). It is the only Big West team Hawaii has never beaten.