Kalani goalie Michael Stafford celebrates after stopping a shot during penalty kicks to defeat Iolani. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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WAIPAHU — Michael Stafford had revenge on his mind Friday night.

Stafford, a senior goalkeeper, made three saves during a penalty-kick shootout to help Kalani to a 1-0 win over Iolani in a semifinal match of the Outrigger Resorts/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I Boys Soccer State Championships at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex.

The Falcons (14-1-1) recovered from an abysmal first half to unseat the defending state-champion and top-seeded Raiders (10-2-2) and will try for its first state title since 2013. They will play second-seeded Mililani, which defeated Punahou 1-0 in the late semifinal, at 7 p.m. in a rematch of the Oahu Interscholastic Association final.

"It's unbelievable. I didn't think we were going to survive that first half, honestly," Kalani coach Michael Ching said. "We played so poor, they played so well. I mean they're good, they're so good. They're the defending state champs, but we got there, we got our legs in the second half. I don't know how our keeper stopped him and then PKs was a memory of last year.

Kalani exacted some payback a year after falling to Iolani in the quarterfinal round of last year's state tournament. That game also went to penalty kicks, with Iolani winning, 2-1.

This time around, Stafford had the final say. He made pivotal diving saves on Iolani's Matt Uemoto, Ryan Yoshida and the game-winner on Liam Blakeslee to set off the Falcons' celebration.

"He wanted a little redemption," Ching said of Stafford. "He guessed right. He was just awesome. Just awesome."

Stafford said he paid attention to the tendencies of the Raiders' shooters and made his best guess.

"Usually I try to read which way they're going depending on how their run up is or which way their shoulders are facing toward which side of the goal or either how they played during the game, like what kind of player they are and you can kind of tell which way they would go," Stafford said.

The penalty kicks were tied at 3-apiece after the first five rounds. Madison Casey gave Kalani a 4-3 lead after his put his PK in the right side of the net. However, Ronnie Bartenstein returned the favor for Iolani to knot it at 4-4. Garrison Nakamura followed with a PK to the lower right corner to regain the lead for Kalani before Stafford sealed it on the final PK.

"Michael always comes up big for us and tonight he came up really big on those stops," Nakamura said. "Last year we fell to Iolani in PKs. This year to beat them in PKs to get to the state final is just a great feeling."

The Raiders dominated the first-half possession, which had Ching worried to say the least.

"We came out flat, we came out scared. We didn't seem to want the ball. I don't know why we played that way," Ching said. "We wanted to sit a little more. Iolani plays a lot of possession, so we knew that we wanted to sit, but we didn't want to sit that much, so we kind of gave them a pep talk at halftime to step a little bit more — they're not professional soccer players — we can pressure them a little bit. In the second half I thought we played pretty well. We had some chances as well, but I don't know how we survived that first half."

In the 48th minute, Iolani had a pair of scoring chances go by the wayside when Stafford rejected shots on goal by Matt Alexander and Spencer Ho.

"Both teams had their opportunities," Raiders' coach Chris Lee said. "I thought in the second half we had two point-blank chances and Matt made some great reaction saves down there and they had one off the post on us. We just couldn't create enough opportunities, but give Kalani credit for the defense that they played and they put a lot of pressure on us with those long balls into the box."

Stafford, who was the keeper on Kalani's state championship winning team in 2013, finished with six saves.

"It just feels great," Stafford said. "I felt that we deserved to win last year, but we just came up a little bit short and I just feel like we prepared very well for this game and I knew that we were ready. There was no way we were going to lose."

Danny Leong made eight saves in goal for Iolani.