HHSAA Girls Soccer
Iolani rallies past Kamehameha-Maui, 2-1


  



Thu, Feb 18, 2016 @ Waipio


Final 1st 2nd OT 2OT PK Tot
Kamehameha-Maui (8-4-1) 1 0 - - - 1
Iolani (11-2-2) 1 1 - - - 2
S. Torres-Benito (72')   Q. Williams (4')   R. Bowler (18')

WAIPAHU — The Iolani girls soccer team was happy to see history not repeat itself Thursday night.

Shantel Torres-Benito scored the go-ahead goal in the 72nd minute to help Iolani rally to a 2-1 win over Kamehameha-Maui in a quarterfinal match of the The Queen's Medical Center/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I  State Championships at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex Thursday night.

The second-seeded Raiders improved to 11-0-2 and will meet Pearl City in a 5 p.m. semifinal Friday.

Torres-Benito got free in front of the goal and dribbled to her left a few times before booting it from about 10 yards out.

"My center-mid, Kasey Bueno, told me ‘shot on goal,' so I made my run, I saw two defenders, I trapped it and I just chipped it to the corner and luckily it went in," Torres-Benito said.

Raiders' coach Kristin Masunaga said she mistakenly thought there was a stoppage in play just prior to the score.

"I thought it was actually a really close handball off Shan, so I think that's why people stopped, but she just nonchalantly turned and shot it," Masunaga said. "But I had a bad angle."

Just as Torres-Benito's shot found the netting, KS-Maui goalkeeper Makamae Aquino raised her arm to suggest an offsides penalty but to no avail.

"The goalie said it was offsides, but I looked at the (assistant referee) and he didn't say anything," said Torres-Benito, a junior "It actually hit my stomach and I just kicked it and it went in."

Fullback and co-captain Rachel Bowler said the proposition of sudden-death overtime — and potentially penalty kicks — was worrisome.

"Penalty kicks is anyone's game," Bowler said. I didn't want to go to PKs because we worked super hard and I didn't want to screw up. I feel like we deserve it because we worked so hard during the season and I didn't want to leave it behind tonight."

The last time the Raiders took to the pitch of the main stadium at Waipio, they suffered a heart-breaking double-overtime loss to Mililani in the state title game last year.

"I didn't want to have the feeling I had last year, so I knew we had to come out ten times harder because of all the work we put in, I didn't want it to go to waste," Bowler said.

Iolani largely controlled the possession and had more than triple the shots on goal that KS-Maui did, but couldn't shake a 1-1 tie for most of the night until Torres-Benito's 10th goal of the season.

"I think we had like 22 shots on goal, so we had to put at least one more in," said Bowler, whose 18th-minute goal knotted things up.

She blasted a left-footed shot from about 20 yards out for her eighth goal of the season.

"I got the ball from outside the 18 and I saw the big opening in the middle so I decided to dribble through it," said Bowler, who is signed with Seattle University. "I just saw the goalie on the left so I shot it upper right."

Iolani fell victim to Kamehameha-Maui's prolific scorer, Quinn Williams, in the game's opening minutes.

Williams, who one day earlier scored four goals in the Warriors' 2-1 win over Castle that went to seven rounds of penalty kicks, capitalized on a defensive miscue by the Raiders in the fourth minute.

Williams drew goalkeeper Katie Yuu out of position, touched the ball to her left and poked it just inside of the right post.

Masunaga said Williams' goal — the first allowed by the Raiders since Jan. 5 and just the third given up all year — served as a wake-up call, but credited her players did not distress.

"I guess that's a good way to put it," Masunaga said. "But there was no panic. I think our forwards in the first half just tried taking on too many players. We told them it's not going to happen and they have to work together, combine passes and we had tons of one-on-one's, but their keeper made some great saves."

Aquino made 10 saves for the Warriors, who did not attempt a corner kick in the game, while Iolani manufactured eight.

KS-Maui, the runner-up from the Maui Interscholastic League, fell to 8-3-1 and will play third-seeded Hilo in a 3 p.m. fifth-place semifinal Friday.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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