Girls Soccer
Baldwin clips Kamehameha, 2-1, in penalty kicks


WAIPAHU — After six seasons, the Baldwin girls soccer team is headed back to the final four.

Baldwin rallied past perennial powerhouse Kamehameha, 2-1 in penalty kicks, in a thrilling quarterfinal-round game of The Queen's Medical Center/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I State Championships on a blustery, overcast afternoon at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex Thursday.

The fourth-seeded Maui Interscholastic League Bears won their sixth straight game to improve to 10-1. They advanced to their first semifinal game since 2010 and will play the winner of Thursday's late quarterfinal between Campbell and Mililani at 7 o'clock Friday night.

"It feels really good," said Skylar Littlefield, who scored Baldwin's lone goal of the game, which tied it in the 68th minute. "I'm a junior and I went to states last year with my team. We lost to Iolani in the quarterfinals, 1-0, so this is a great feeling."

The Bears trailed for most of the contest.

Leah Feato got the Warriors on the board in the 15th minute with her sixth goal of the season.

"During the first half our coaches weren't very pleased with how we were playing," Littlefield said. "We weren't pressing hard enough and we weren't playing how we usually play and when we went back in the second half, we thought that this is our game to win. We need this, we want to go to the semis, we've come this far and we don't want to stop now so we just gave it our all."

The score held until Littlefield found the back of the net with her right foot from about 15 yards out to equalize.

"It was wide open: I saw it, I looked up, I touched it one time and I ripped it and it went right in, right over her hands," Littlefield said. "When I scored that goal I got chicken skin. It was exactly like how we won MIL's and it's a great feeling."

After 80 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of overtime, the teams remained deadlocked and went to penalty kicks.

Even after five rounds of PKs, the teams were still knotted at 3-all. Both teams made their sixth attempts before Kiley Inouye found the right side of the net to put the Bears ahead.

Feato had a chance to force another round of penalty kicks, but her shot missed high and wide right, sending Baldwin and its fans into celebratory mode.

"I had all the confidence in them and I had my first five shooters so with the second five I pretty much just asked if they were confident and all of them looked in my eyes and they were very confident in themselves and in their teammates so I had no doubt," said Baldwin coach Tia Medeiros, who noted it was the first time in recently memory that she could recall her team went to penalty kicks.

Medeiros said she put an emphasis on practicing penalty kicks in the past week.

"We maybe did PKs twice in the season — because we don't have PKs — just in case we get one in a game, but this whole week of practice before we got here, we had about a week and a half of practice and almost every day we've been working on PKs, so I'm glad we did," Medeiros said. "It paid off in the end."

Freshman goalkeeper Malie Kuia made three saves in the win, but her biggest save came early in penalty kicks.

After Kacy Lyn Navarro Laumatia missed wide right on Baldwin's second PK try, Kuia denied Kamehameha's Rachael Tagatauli on a diving save.

"I knew Malie was going to step up to the challenge," Medeiros said. "We had a couple of misses, but again it's the first time we've ever gone to PKs and the jitters, but Malie saved us on. That block that she had after our first miss was critical."

Kuia weathered 27 shots by Kamehameha, including 15 in the first half alone.

"She was huge and we were hurting for a keeper because our keeper graduated last year and we were very lucky to have her come and step in," Medeiros said. "Her confidence and the way she controls the back, she doesn't play like a freshman."

Littlefield was one of the numerous Baldwin players that were hindered by muscle cramps and/or injuries over the course of the game.

"I feel like not only her, but a lot of these girls showed a lot of toughness in the second half and in overtime," Medeiros said. "I kept having to rotate girls because of cramping and injuries and this is the first overtime game we've played in years so it's something new for them and they stepped up to the challenge."

Littlefield, who has a torn meniscus and a cyst in her left knee, played the game with a brace on it and had an ice pack over it afterward, but refused to view it as a hinderance for Friday.

"We're going to give it our all," Littlefield said. "We're not going to stop even if we are banged up. We've been banged up for a while, pretty much our whole season but everyone just gives it their all and they don't stop."

The Bears are seeking their first state title since back-to-back crowns in 2000 and '01.

Medeiros, Baldwin's fourth-year coach, was a member of the first state championship-winning team.

"For me, it's about time because I've been there, but for these girls I bet it's one of the best feelings in the world so I'm super happy for them," Medeiros said. "We didn't play very well in the first half and they picked it up in the second half and pulled it off in the end."

The unseeded Interscholastic League of Honolulu runner-up Warriors fell to 11-1-1 and will play in a 3 p.m. fifth-place semifinal Friday.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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