Iolani tops Punahou in ILH girls soccer, 1-0

Iolani's CJ Fajardo celebrate after a goal scored against Punahou. Greg Yamamoto | SL

It had been more than 10 months since Iolani and Punahou played for the Division I state championship, but the result was the same.

Celeste Jordan "CJ" Fajardo scored the lone goal in the Raiders' 1-0 win over the Buffanblu in an Interscholastic League of Honolulu game at Eddie Hamada Track and Field at Kozuki Stadium Friday afternoon. With the win, Iolani improved to 3-0 while Punahou lost their second straight one-goal game in four days to fall to 2-2.

The same two teams — with numerous new players, however — met in the final game of last season, which the Raiders also won, by a score of 3-1.

"I think we played well, we achieved our goals of coming out hard off the whistle, because in the past we've been a second-half team," said Iolani coach Kristen Masunaga, who led her alma mater last February to its first state title since 1999 and fourth overall. "We possessed the ball well and luckily we finished our opportunity."

Fajardo, a senior midfielder, capitalized on a Punahou miscue when a loose ball found her on the backside of the goal and she put it in with her right foot from about 10 feet away.

"Megan Goo was going toward the left corner and then she served it and I just came in the backdoor," Fajardo said. "I was the second tier, Kylee (Kim-Bustillos) touched it to me and then I saw that Goo beat the defender and I knew that she was going to cross it, so I just covered the back door."

Both teams struggled offensively in a scoreless first half and were victim to numerous errant passes until Fajardo's goal in the 58th minute.

"It was actually like we practiced, so I'm glad that they executed on what we've been working on," Masunaga said.

It was the first regular-season Division-I opponent that Iolani played this year after wins over Sacred Hearts and Pac-Five by a combined 13-1. Both the Raiders and Buffanblu were hit hard by losses to graduation — especially on the offensive end.

"Punahou is a different team (from last year), we're a different team so the fact that it was a rematch of the championship game wasn't really a factor," Masunaga said.

The win not only helped Iolani keep pace with Kamehameha, which remained unbeaten after beating Punahou 1-0 Tuesday, but dropped the Buffanblu to 2-2 in the tough ILH.

"It puts them in a bad position, yes, but I wouldn't count (Punahou) out," Masunaga said. "They can still come back and beat Kamehameha, beat us and it's always a tight race to the finish."

Buffanblu coach Starr Johnson remained positive while addressing her team after the game.

"We bring ourselves together first and make sure that our team chemistry and our unit stays strong as we move forward," Johnson said. "We obviously need to stay position and it's not over for us by any means so we just need to continue training hard and we have some pretty serious injuries that we have the time now to heal and recover from as well, so as we approach our next games, including the next round when we face these two teams again we'll be a different team. We'll have our injured players on the field, we'll have weeks more of training to work out some of the kinks and we hope to give them a good run."

Iolani had four shots on goal to Punahou's five and got five saves by goalkeeper Kathryn Yuu. Punahou's Noe Kong-Johnson made four saves.

Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].