The Raiders celebrate after a goal by freshman forward Mia Watanabe. Greg Yamamoto | SL

Purchase image 1 of 1

Mon, Jan 30, 2017 @ Iolani

---

Moanalua

0

Iolani

3

Final	1st	2nd	OT	2OT	PK	Tot
Moanalua (10-3-1)	0	0	-	-	-	0
Iolani (13-0-3)	1	2	-	-	-	3

S. Masca (70')   S. Torres-Benito (19')   M. Watanabe (46')

Three different players scored a goal and Iolani eased past visiting Moanalua 3-0 in a first-round game of The Queen's Medical Center/HHSAA Division I Girls Soccer State Championships at Kozuki Stadium Monday afternoon.

The Raiders, who finished second in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, pitched their ninth shut out of the season to improve to 10-0-3 on the year. They will face Big Island Interscholastic Federation champion and No. 4 seed Hilo in a 1 p.m. quarterfinal Thursday at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium.

It was Iolani's first game since its ILH regular-season finale at Kamehameha on Jan. 21 — the only time it was held scoreless this year.

The Raiders had little difficultly finding the back of the net Monday.

Shantel Torres-Benito opened the scoring about midway through the first half. Kylee Kim-Bustillos' shot from the right side ricocheted off the crossbar to the left side of the goalie box to Torres-Benito, who placed it into the left side of the goal for her 11th goal this season.

Kim-Bustillos, Iolani's leading scorer with 21 goals scored this year, got her shot off just before Moanalua goalkeeper Alexis Davis came crashing into her near the top of the 18-yard box. Kim-Bustillos was briefly down after the play, but stayed in the game.

"We have relied on her to score, so actually it's nice to have others involved," Iolani coach Kristin Masunaga said. "I noticed today she was especially unselfish and that's good for us."

Torres-Benito said she was the beneficiary of Moanalua's marking up freshman forward Mia Watanabe with senior midfielder Rachel Elizares.

"I feel like because someone is marking Mia, it leaves a wider open space for me to run on to the ball, so that definitely helped," Torres-Benito.

Six minutes into the second half, the Raiders doubled up their lead on Watanabe's 11th goal of the season.

On the scoring play, center-mid Kelsey Takahashi — another freshman — sent a through-ball to Watanabe up top, who beat her defender and took advantage of a one-on-one chance against Davis. Watanabe took a dribble to just inside the 18-yard box and poked the ball into the lower left corner of the goal.

Watanabe said the play was set-up by numerous wide runs early in the game.

"When someone makes an outside run, they open up the space in the middle so that's how we found the through-balls and then down in the corner we have good runners that always make the right runs, so they find the open space and it's easy to find them," Watanabe said.

Watanabe's speed doesn't hurt, either.

"I just think Mia is a beast. She's really fast, so it's hard to defend her," Masunaga said of Watanabe, one of seven freshmen on her roster.

"There's actually a few more that we would have liked to pull up, but for whatever reason we couldn't, but they're going to be a class to watch," Masunaga said.

The Raiders added an insurance score in the 70th minute. Senior Samantha Masca followed up a rebound off a shot by freshman Kaitlin Uemoto and scored from about 10 yards out.

Masunaga said converting those second chances were critical against Moanalua.

"We knew that that was one of their weaknesses so it was imperative that we follow the shots and put them away," Masunaga said.

Torres-Benito said they did not find out their opponent until Saturday — just two days before Monday's opening-round game.

"I felt like it was definitely hard to interpret because we didn't know that (many) players on Moanalua and we didn't really know how their playing style was, so it was kind of a surprise for us," Torres-Benito said. "I thought in the beginning we had a hard time connecting (passes) because Moanalua's defense was pressing hard against us, but over time I think we eventually got a rhythm and eventually we found out how to put away our goals."

Moanalua's Davis made 11 saves in goal on 16 Iolani shots on goal, while Kawai Scanlan and Musuai Isaia combined for four saves for the Raiders.

Moanalua, the fourth-place team out of the Oahu Interscholastic Association, was shut out in its final three games and ends the season with a 10-3-1 record.

It was the second straight year that Na Menehune lost in the first round. They suffered a 7-0 loss to Kamehameha last year.