Pearl City's Sunshine Fontes tries to poke the ball away from Moanalua's Tarynn Sales in the second half. Michael Lasquero | SL

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Thu, Jan 19, 2017 @ Castle

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Moanalua

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Pearl City

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Final	1st	2nd	OT	2OT	PK	Tot
Moanalua (10-3-1)	0	0	-	-	-	0
Pearl City (11-5-1)	0	1	-	-	-	1

S. Fontes (48')

KANEOHE — Pearl City will get the rematch it waited a year for.

Sunshine Fontes scored early in the second half to help the Chargers to a 1-0 win over previously-unbeaten Moanalua in a semifinal match of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I girls soccer tournament at Castle Thursday night.

Pearl City improved to 9-2-1 with the win, which sets up a rematch of last year's league final against familiar foe, Mililani.

Despite going on to win the state championship last season, the Chargers fell to the Trojans in the OIA title game, 2-1. It was Mililani's 15th league crown in school history.

"Every championship goes through Mililani or Kaiser — it's usually one or the other — so it might as well be them," Pearl City coach Frank Baumholtz III said.

The Chargers took care of business Thursday night despite some banged-up bodies, including senior forward Randi Fontes, who has scored 17 goals this year.

Randi, Sunshine's older sister, saw her playing time somewhat limited due to some bruised ribs from Tuesday night's quarterfinal win over Kahuku, but Pearl City used its depth and many interchangeable parts to get the job done.

Leading scorer Daelenn Tokunaga (18 goals), Caylie Uyema, Brittny Ihara and both Fontes sisters rotated between the forward and midfield positions and gave the Chargers numerous scoring chances. They registered 13 shots on goal, including eight in the second half.

"I read an article where a sand volleyball coach said, ‘When you have a lot of talent that wants to play, it makes the talent work harder,' and that's kind of helped because our younger people, they give it their all in practice and we're not afraid to stick them in the game and everybody really contributed a lot," Baumholtz III said.

Sunshine Fontes started the game as a center-mid, but saw a lot of time up top in the second half.

"It's good that we can be fluid and all move around and play different positions because when someone's injured like (Randi) then one can just fill in for her," said Fontes, whose goal was set-up by teammate Piper Collado in the 48th minute.

Fontes scored on a left-footed shot from inside the 6-yard box. Collado, a junior fullback, served a long ball from about 40 yards out just over a Moanalua defender and to Fontes, who placed her shot into the bottom left corner of the goal, just out of the reach of goalkeeper Alexis Davis.

"Sunshine's (goal) was really nice. She just turned and it almost looked like she didn't look," Baumholtz III said. "Her head was coming around and she just looked at the ball and she kind of knew where she was by the lines on the field and she just drove it at the goal. That kind of warms your heart when that ball goes in."

It was Fontes' seventh goal in three games — she posted back-to-back hat tricks in Pearl City's regular-season finale against Leilehua on Jan. 10 and Tuesday's quarterfinal-round win over Kahuku — and 17th of the season and just the sixth allowed by Na Menehune this season.

Baumholtz's halftime speech to his players proved to be prophetic.

"We just told them to keep doing what we were doing," he said. "Our defense was solid. We were thinking about changing our formation and I just said, 'No, let's not change the momentum,' because we were making connections."

It was a different story for Moanalua at halftime, which saw its leading scorer, sophomore forward/midfielder Kelci Sumida (14 goals), exit the game just minutes before the intermission.

"She's been struggling with her hamstring for some time, but we knew we had to go with our strongest lineup and unfortunately we depended on a lot of long ball and her chasing up there to apply pressure on the defense, and that's when her leg just gave out," Na Menehune coach Nikki Dela Pena said.

Sumida did not return in the second half. In her place, Dela Pena moved outside-mid Tarynn Sales up top, but with so much of her team's effort focused on slowing down the Chargers' potent offense, it left little opportunity to create much offense their own.

"Respecting their weapons on top, we pulled back some numbers so we didn't have the attack that we were going with first," Dela Pena said. "We were trying to make sure our defense could organize the threat first before we started to maintain our attack and so that just allowed us to come back and play a little bit more defensive in the first half."

Na Menehune managed just one shot on goal and did not attempt a corner kick. Davis made 12 saves in goal.

Baumholtz was pleased with the play of his back line of center-backs Bethany Nazareno and Megumi Takushi, along with outside-backs Zoe Sano and Collado.

"We got better and better at keeping possession of it as the game went on. (Moanalua) only had sporadic attacks; I don't think they had a really solid shot on goal all game," Baumholtz said. "Unfortunately those fullbacks didn't get any substitutions because we have a couple people hurt. There were a couple of kids I really wished I could have got in the game, but the situation was such high-pressure and everybody that was in the game was doing their job, so rather than change that momentum, some of them didn't get to play that could have played, but we're probably going to really need them on Saturday."

The Chargers, who finished second to Mililani in the Western Division in the regular season, will try for their first OIA title since 2014 and ninth overall.

"I'm excited to meet up with them again in the finals because we lost last year and it was pretty sad, so we're ready to come back," Fontes said.

The Trojans defeated the Chargers in their regular-season meeting at Mililani's John Kauinana Stadium on Dec. 7, 3-1.

Moanalua, the top seed out of the Eastern Division, saw its nine-game win streak snapped and fell to 10-1-1. It lost to Mililani, 6-1, in the semifinal round of last year's OIA tournament.

Na Menehune will face Castle for third place, 7 p.m. Friday at Kailua's Alex Kane Stadium.

Saturday's championship final between Pearl City and Mililani will follow the D2 title game at 5 p.m. that features Waipahu and Kalaheo. Both games will be played at Castle.