It was a points-or-bust kind of evening for the Hawaii soccer team.

The Rainbow Wahine emerged with a hard-earned 1-0 victory at Cal State Northridge thanks to forward Tatum Porter’s 81^st-minute score at Matador Soccer Field on Thursday night.

“We would’ve been so mad to tie,” UH coach Michele Nagamine told Spectrum News in a postgame phone interview. “I can remember a day, way back when, where we were just thrilled to get out of anyplace with points. … I could see it in their eyes; it was not going to be enough. We really needed to make sure we walked out of here with three points.”

UH (7-6, 3-0 Big West) matched its best three-game BWC start (2019) and won its fifth straight overall, tied for a two-week stretch in 2016 for the longest run of success in the 13-season Nagamine era.

UH is in second place in the Big West table (nine points) behind only UC Santa Barbara (3-0-1, 10 points) heading into Sunday’s 4 p.m. home matchup with nemesis Cal State Fullerton (4-7-2, 2-1-1). The Titans, who have never lost to the Wahine in a Big West match, trounced UC Riverside 4-0 at home on Thursday.

The split road/home week made for some awkward travel for UH, which arrives back in the islands on Friday and will prepare for the Titans on Saturday.

For one night, though, UH could rest on the result as Porter came through with her third career goal, all this season.

Senior Mia Foster dribbled upfield and crossed it to the sophomore from Alaska, who gathered it and flicked it just inside the right post with her right foot.

“It was just one of those well-struck, well-placed balls and it rolled right into the corner,” Nagamine said. “An extremely hard shot to finish and she put it in the back of the net.”

UH did a solid job of killing the clock from there, at one point wasting nearly two minutes in one of CSUN’s defensive corners with a series of throw-ins and turtle moves.

Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Kennedy Justin recorded her second straight shutout, this time without a save as CSUN (3-9-1, 1-2-1) did not record a shot on goal.

CSUN is in its first year under Gina Brewer, a former UH assistant with Pinsoom Tenzing and an ex-Hawaii Pacific head coach.

Nagamine praised CSUN’s drive to challenge every ball.

“She’s such a student of the game and she’s a coach-educator,” Nagamine said. “She knows her stuff. She got her team; you can tell they’re 100% bought in. Everybody’s moving in the same direction.”

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.