{"id":180046,"date":"2023-07-10T15:14:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T01:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=180046"},"modified":"2023-07-10T16:19:27","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T02:19:27","slug":"jodie-lillie-uh-hilo-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2023\/07\/10\/jodie-lillie-uh-hilo-soccer\/","title":{"rendered":"Jodi Lillie named 2022\u201423 UH<\/abbr> Hilo Female Athlete of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"Jodie<\/p>\n

The University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo<\/a> women’s soccer program reached new heights last fall with an undefeated run through the regular season to claim back-to-back Pacific West Conference Championships. Captain and fifth-year senior defender Jodi Lillie was named 2022—23 UH<\/abbr> Hilo Female Athlete of the Year.<\/p>\n

With a 13-1-3 finish, the UH<\/abbr> Hilo women’s soccer team<\/a> earned a consecutive nod as Vulcan Team of the Year as announced at the annual All-Sports Banquet in early May.<\/p>\n

Lillie helped the Vulcans to a 40-16-13 record and 35 team shutouts during her five seasons, prompting recognition with five All-PacWest Team honors, five All-Region awards and a spot on the United Soccer Coaches Scholar All-America Third Team.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t feel like I was doing anything spectacular. I think I was just doing what I needed to do with what my role required,” Lillie said. “To be getting a lot of recognition was really special to me because I didn’t think about it at all or expect anything.”<\/p>\n

\"Jodie<\/p>\n

Along with the opportunity of having a well-rounded college experience at the Division II<\/abbr> level, getting minutes on the field was also a big priority as Lillie would go on to start all 69 matches spanning her decorated five-season career.<\/p>\n

Head coach Gene Okamura credits Lillie as a big reason the women’s soccer program has developed to where it is today.<\/p>\n

“Their style of play was way different before I got there in 2018 and I was thinking, ‘What am I getting myself into?’” Lillie said. “I was really surprised how well we did. I thought the team we had my freshman year was really good, but I was just surprised they hadn’t done as well in the past. We just got better and worked well together.”<\/p>\n

Off the field, Lillie garnered many academic accolades along the way and graduated spring of 2022 with a bachelor of business administration and a concentration in marketing before opting to use an extra year of eligibility\u2014granted from the COVID-19 pandemic\u2014to return to help the Vulcans earn back-to-back PacWest Conference titles.<\/p>\n

Last summer, Lillie was UH<\/abbr> Hilo’s nomination for NCAA<\/abbr> Woman of the Year<\/a> for her growth and development as a team leader and would later advance as one of two student-athletes to represent the PacWest Conference in the national pool.<\/p>\n

While proving to have great leadership qualities, Lillie doesn’t see herself coaching in the near-future. Since hanging up the cleats, Lillie returned home and has been working as a contract specialist intern at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Oʻahu<\/span>.<\/p>\n

For the full story visit hiloathletics.com <\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UH<\/abbr> Hilo women\u2019s soccer defender Lillie was honored with female athlete of the year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,1556,660,714,14,151],"class_list":["post-180046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-soccer","tag-student-recognition","tag-student-athlete","tag-uh-hilo","tag-hilo-athletics","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180046"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180087,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180046\/revisions\/180087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}