Pearl City stays unbeaten with 2-0 semifinal win over Castle


Pearl City's Sunshine Fontes tries to get by a Castle defender. She scored her 22nd goal of the season in the Chargers' 2-0 win. CJ Caraang | SL

KAPOLEI — Five minutes made all the difference for both the Pearl City and Castle girls soccer teams Thursday night.

The Chargers got a pair of early goals from sisters Randi and Sunshine Fontes en route to a 2-0 win over the Knights in a semifinal match of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I Tournament played at Kapolei Stadium.

The win puts Pearl City, the top seed out of the Western Division and the lone remaining undefeated team in the OIA, into Saturday's title game. It will play West second seed Mililani at 7 p.m. Saturday at Kapolei.

The Chargers (12-0) will be seeking their ninth league crown in school history.

"It feels good. Hopefully we can win it again," said Randi Fontes, who was a freshman on the last Pearl City team to win the OIA championship in 2014.

Randi Fontes, a junior midfielder, opened the scoring in the third minute. She received a cross along the right flank and placed her left-footed shot past Castle goalkeeper Kaile Kauanui.

"Daelenn (Tokunaga) ran down the line, crossed it and I was at the back post and I finished it," Randi Fontes said.

Just a few minutes later, Randi made a run along the right side of the field before dropping off a pass to her sister, Sunshine, in the middle of the field, who took advantage of a one-on-one situation against Kauanui.

"I touched it and then I shot it far post," Sunshine Fontes said of her 22nd goal this season.

The freshman forward netted a hat trick in a 4-2 quarterfinal win over Campbell Tuesday night and has scored in all but two games this season.

"It was a shock because we came out flat, so it was a shock on our part," Castle coach Millie Dydasco said. "We just weren't focused in the first 15 minutes and when you play against good teams like Pearl City, they'll capitalize on our mistakes and that's exactly what they did."

The Knights turned it for the remainder of the first half, controlling most of the possession, but couldn't capitalize on scoring chances.

"We had our chances," Dydasco said. "We needed more juice on the other end to finish our shots off and we needed to connect better in the attacking third and we didn't. We got it up there, but we couldn't connect."

Pearl City coach Frank Baumholtz III gave Castle credit for keeping the pressure on.

"They had the pedal to the medal the whole game and we thought we had it won after we scored two goals," Baumholtz III said. "We couldn't get out of that funk where we just kept kicking the ball to the other team and when you do that it's going to make the day stressful and difficult for you. We fortunately played good enough defense to get by."

The Chargers posted their seventh shutout of the year and rebounded from allowing a pair of goals Tuesday night.

"Sydney (Young) blocked a couple of shots and made a couple of fabulous diving blocks," Baumholtz III said of his senior goalie.

Dydasco said her team struggled to overcome a key change to its back line.

"We've had one of our key defenders out on a trip, so we've had a new player come in to take her spot and it wasn't her fault, but it's just organization," Dydasco said. "It's just a brand new formation in the back with a new defender that's never played there the whole season, so there was confusion, lack of organization, not our original personnel in the back, so they caught us off guard because of that."

Kauanui made 11 saves for Castle, which fell to 8-3 and will play Moanalua in Friday's third-place game at 7 p.m. at Aiea.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].