Pearl City's Jordan Gomes advances the ball against Castle. Sylvia Lee | SL

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012314_SL-GS-CAST_PC-0773.jpg - Sylvia Lee | SL

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KAPOLEI - With playoffs coming up, Pearl City began preparation for penalty kicks at the start of the year. It paid off big time in Thursday's semifinals of the O'ahu Interscholastic Association Red girls' soccer tournament at Kapolei stadium.

Field player Jordan Gomes made two saves in the penalty kicks phase and the Western Division's fifth-seeded Chargers edged East second seed Castle, 1-0, to advance to the championship for the first time since 2008, the last time the Chargers won the league title.

The Chargers won the penalty-kicks phase, 4-1.

"I was practicing for it," Gomes said. "It's crazy being put in that situation after playing (in the field) most of the whole game. It's just crazy."

Pearl City (9-4) will meet Kaiser (11-1) for the championship at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Kapolei. Kaiser beat Kapolei, 2-1, also on penalty kicks, in the other semifinal. The schools played for the title in 1998 with Pearl City winning, 1-0, in penalty kicks. Kaiser lost in last year's title game to Mililani, 2-0.

Pearl City's veteran coach Frank Baumholtz III had seen his share of penalty kicks where shots just cleared under the cross bar, but over the out-stretched keeper's reach. So he replaced starting goalkeeper Ariela Bali for the taller Gomes for the penalty kicks. In early January, he sent Gomes into the net to practice against penalty kicks.

"I thought, 'OK, Jordan, you're the tallest girl on this team. You have to learn how to be a goalie.'" Baumholtz said.

Baumholtz had just about everyone take shots against Gomes at practice.

"We had the boys come down shoot at her sometimes," Baumholtz said. "There's percentages where shooters are going to go; I told her you go with the percentages. And if you're in doubt, just go where ever you decide to go."

Tasha Inong, Erin Okuna, Haley Honda and Randi Fontes accounted for Pearl City's penalty kicks, while Vanessa Chinen converted the only successful one for Castle (9-3).

With the PKs knotted at 1, Okuna fired her shot past Castle keeper Brandee Lane to put the Chargers ahead, 2-1. Castle's Destinee Hanaike came up, but her shot was stuffed by Gomes. But the official ruled Gomes came off the goal line too early, so Hanaike had a re-kick.

"Bogus," is how Baumholttz described the call.

Didn't matter, as Gomes just deflected Hanaike's second-chance shot.

Pearl City's Honda's kick went off the finger tips of Lane and into the goal to make it 3-1.

Gomes notched her second save on Mikayla Harada's kick. The Chargers clinched it on Fontes' goal to end the scoreless marathon after 80 minutes of regulation and two 10-minute overtime periods.

The Chargers had 25 shots on goal to the Knights' 12. Lane registered 10 saves against the aggressive Chargers.

"Pearl City's tough," Castle coach Millie Dydasco said. "They're strong in the back and we just couldn't get the balls behind them. When we attacked them, we had some problems."

Pearl City's offensive game might have been hampered without the services of forward Cailla Fabro, who had to sit out the Castle game after being issued a red card in Wednesday's quarterfinal win against Campbell. Fabro is eligible to play in Friday's championship.

The Knights will play Kapolei for third place 4 p.m. Friday at Pearl City. Both already have secured Division I state berths. Castle had been looking for its first title-game appearance since 1991.

"All you can ask from a player is to put it all out there and they absolutely did that," Dyadasco said. "I couldn't be prouder today for the whole team and their effort."