Pearl City's Sunshine Fontes attempts a kick against Kapolei Monday night. CJ Caraang | SL

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_17013144_GSOC_KAP-PC_CJCARAANG-0027.jpg - CJ Caraang | SL

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PEARL CITY – For defending state champion Pearl City, the theme of this Queen's Medical Center Division I state girls' soccer tournament is familiarity.

After a sluggish first half, the Chargers came on strong in the second to oust Oahu Interscholastic Association Western Division foe Kapolei, 2-0, Monday night in the regional first round at Bino Neves Stadium.

During the regular season, the teams played to a 1-1 tie. Kapolei's season ends at 7-5-3.

The Chargers (10-3-1) will face yet another familiar face in third-seeded Baldwin (11-0-1) in the quarterfinals 7 p.m. Thursday at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex Main Stadium. It is a rematch of last year's title game, that Pearl City prevailed, 3-0.

"Playing Kapolei is like playing your sister," Pearl City coach Frank Baumholtz said. "You've seen her so many times over the years. You know what they're going to do, they know what we're going to do. It's a head-to-head war to see who prevails."

Kapolei coach Brian Beck had hoped the familiarity would help his team.

"We actually liked our chances tonight," Beck said. "It's familiar. We tied them during the regular season. The draw is tough, but all the teams are good now. We were hoping to kind of surprise some people."

Dating to last year's tournament, this is Pearl City's fifth consecutive state victory and fourth straight shutout. The Chargers' defense allowed few opportunities for the Hurricanes to get clean shots toward the goal.

Offensively, it was the usual suspects – directly and indirectly – leading the charge.

Zoe Sano's penalty kick in the 46^th minute snapped the scoreless tie. But it was the threat of West scoring co-leader Daelenn Tokunaga (16 goals in the regular season) on a breakway that forced Kapolei defender Kayla Alcott to foul just inside the penalty area. It's similar to a football cornerback interfering with a wide receiver.

"In that situation when you have probably the fastest player in the state in Daelenn Tokunaga – Kayla's one of our best defenders and she got beat – that was a professional foul," Beck said.  "Just unfortunate she was inside of the box. She had to slow her down. They both know it wasn't intentional…If she doesn't foul, (Tokunaga) might go ahead and get the goal anyway."

The PK seemed to spur the Chargers offensively. Less than a minute later, Tokunaga fired a perfect cross to toward the middle to Sunshine Fontes, whose shot went right of the upright. Fontes, in fact, had two more shots on goal that just missed wide before finally getting a pass over the middle and scoring from 15 yards out at the 55^th minute. Fontes tied for third in the West with 13 goals.

"Zoe's like ice on penalty kicks," Baumholtz said. "As soon as we took got the momentum, it was like a totally different team from that point of the game."

The Chargers are 19-11 in the quarterfinal round.