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| After
a brief 3 year hiatus of having no college men’s soccer teams in
Hawaii, BYU Hawaii and the Pac West Conference have made Men’s Soccer
one of the official conference sports for all of it’s member schools.
This program and team will be a major benefactor to LDS soccer players
around the world as it will be the only BYU to have a men’s NCAA
college soccer team. This team has the potential to draw athletes from
around the world from the most popular international sport on the planet,
and from looking at this years roster, this fledgling new program has
already begun to do just that.
The new and improved BYU Hawaii Men’s Soccer team of 2007 has players competing and representing the countries of Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Guatemala, Japan, Germany, and the USA. These players bring a unique blend of talent and style to this young and exciting team for this season of soccer competitions. This years team has goals to improve upon their last years 3rd place conference finish and 7-6-1 record which was exceptional for a first year college team. The Seasider’s have 19 games scheduled with talented opponents such as Cal State Monterey Bay, Chico State, Humboldt, Grand Canyon, and the defending Pac West Champions Notre Dame de Namur. Second year head Coach Jeff Miller says “We are looking to improve our teams speed of play and creativity this year which will allow for us more scoring opportunities throughout the entire season.”
Key players to enable the Seasider’s success should be; Captain Brian “B” Noguera who replaces all conference midfielder Ka’I Kamoe who is now serving an LDS mission in Samoa. Forward Shawn Blymiller who transferred to BYU Hawaii from Iowa Western, freshman defender Collin Walch from California, big man Adam Maciejewski from Germany, and returning defenders Alex Ruegner from Utah and Alan Domingo from Hawaii. Mike Akinaka the teams leading scorer and captain from last year who made 2nd team all conference should again help to power the seasiders attack this fall. Akinaka should get some help from his brother Sam Akinaka who is a returning player for BYU Hawaii when the original men’s team was formed back in 1998 and 1999, before finishing helicopter school and then heading back to Laie to further his education. hi pani. Justin Hong who just returned from a 6 month service expedition to China should also contribute in the middle. The Seasider’s look raise the bar with their goals and expectations
this year, and should prove to have some exciting soccer matches as they
are already off to a great start after having key victories over Chico
State and La Verne University in two of their first three games. |
