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Kalani Takase | ScoringLiveFebruary 17, 2022, 11:39pm
Thu, Feb 17, 2022 @ Kapolei
KAPOLEI — Ciano Pham registered two crucial saves on penalty kicks to help No. 7 Kapolei to a 3-2 win in PKs over Aiea in the semifinals of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I boys soccer tournament Thursday night.
A sparse crowd of about 200 fans at Kapolei's Alvin Nagasako Sports Complex saw the West second-seeded Hurricanes improve to 11-1 on the season and punch their ticket to Saturday's championship match.
Na Alii, the fourth seed out of the Western Division, had their five-game win streak snapped and fell to 9-4.
Kapolei will try for a third straight OIA title — and first under first-year coach Keoki Haole — when it meets No. 1 Mililani in Saturday's championship final.
"I'm just proud of them," said Haole, who won an OIA championship as a player in 2007, when he was a Kapolei senior. "The boys stepped up tonight."
It didn't come easy for the ‘Canes, who pushed the game to extra time with Jordan Nobe's goal with under a minute left.
With time winding down, Kapolei pushed numbers up in the box. Aiea failed to clear the ball, which bounced around in the box and eventually found the feet of Nobe, who put it away for his fifth goal of the season.
"I mean, we were pressing, we were pressing, we were pressing; we were trying to get heads in the box, we were trying to get lucky bounces or whatever would go in our favor. I knew that if we kept pressing we would get more chances so it was all about a little bit of luck and falling into the right spot," Haole said.
Not long after Nobe's equalizer, the match went into overtime tied at 2. The score held through the two 10-minute overtime periods before it reached PKs.
After he made six saves through 100 minutes of play, Pham denied Aiea's first penalty kick to give his team a leg-up. Aleki Kiesel converted Kapolei's first PK and each team made good on its next two rounds to give the ‘Canes a 3-2 lead after three rounds.
Pham then made a diving save to block Aiea's fourth shot attempt to set-up Zaedan Romero for his clinching penalty kick, which he put away into the bottom left corner to ignite the Hurricanes' celebration.
"He's been amazing all season," Haole said of Pham, a junior goalkeeper. "He's played well every single game, come up with big saves and helps our team out a lot. I'm really proud of him with the progress he's made, this is his first year goalkeeping."
Na Alii coach Qaylan Malama lamented the end result, but disclosed that his team hadn't spend much time on penalty kicks. After all, games in the regular season, of course, end in a tie after regulation.
"We don't train PKs at all. I mean, they goof around with it, but I don't actually hold a training session where we work on PKs, but you should be able to be precise with all the training that we do," Malama said. "Other than that it's unfortunate that games are decided that way, but we can't look at that situation. We look at, you're given eighty minutes to win a game and you gotta try and win it in the eighty minutes."
Kapolei opened the scoring in the ninth minute after Logan Aurio put away a rebound off of a shot on goal by Romero that was deflected by the Aiea goalkeeper.
"Very fortunate," Haole said of the goal. "I mean, sometimes better to be lucky than good, so we were very happy to get that."
The ‘Canes' lead held through halftime and until the 46th minute. That's when Aiea equalized with Kelly Takara's goal from distance that he lofted over a defender and the goalie and into the back of the net.
Only two minutes after that, a Kapolei defender was whistled for a costly foul in the box, which award Na Alii a penalty kick that Takara put away into the lower left corner for the go-ahead goal.
Hauoli said that the sequence forced his team to dig deep.
"It really tested their character and it really tested if they have the will and determination if they really wanted to be in that championship game, which is on our home field, so they showed a lot of will and determination to come back from that," he said.
After Takara put his team up, he moved back in the formation from forward to defensive-mid. Takara eventually finished the game between the posts as Aiea's PK goalie.
"Well, Kelly is technically a keeper by trade, so Kelly is not a striker," Malama said of the junior, who leads Na Alii with 13 goals this season. "Kelly is a keeper and a center-back and sometimes he plays center-mid, sometimes he plays striker, but he's a keeper and a center-back, but anywhere up the middle (he's a) very strong player; very mature as a player."
The Hurricanes had no fewer than four chances in the final 10 minutes of regulation, but to no avail. That is, until Nobe knotted it up in the closing seconds.
"It was a bit messy, but at the end of the day we kind of knew it was gonna be like that and we knew what to expect, so the boys just, at the end, did it, you know, they finished it out and that's all that I could expect," Haole said.
Malama tended to agree with the assessment of his counterpart.
"I don't think it was a very pretty game and a nice game, but for us it wasn't intended to be pretty and nice; we tried to go for it and we were here to win, not to play pretty soccer," Malama said. "I think we gave it our all and we tried."
It was the second time that the teams faced-off this season. Kapolei came away with a 3-1 win over Aiea when they met in the regular season back on Jan. 14.
"Yes, (but) they were missing some key players," Haole said of Aiea, who played without three starters that night — most prominently, Takara.
"We knew that as well, so we knew that they would be a lot tougher this time," Haole added.
Aiea, which won the last OIA D2 championship back in 2020, will play No. 6 Kalani for third place at 7 p.m. Friday at Pearl City's Bino Neves Stadium.
Kapolei will be seeking its sixth league title Saturday against a familiar foe in Mililani, the top seed out of the West.
The Trojans are responsible for the only blemish on the Hurricanes' schedule this year: a 2-0 decision at John Kauinana Stadium to close out the regular season two weeks ago.
Saturday's championship doubleheader at Kapolei gets underway at 5 p.m. with the D2 final between Waialua (5-6-1) and Radford (6-3-2).
No. 1 Mililani blows by No. 6 Kalani, 3-1
The top-ranked Mililani boys soccer team took care of business against No. 6 Kalani by a score of 3-1 in the late semifinal at Kapolei Thursday night.
All four of the game's goals came after halftime.
Three different players scored a goal for the Trojans (12-0). Noah Fujikane opened the scoring in the 51st minute with his header off of an assist from Max Scott for his fifth goal of the year. Xander Tamashiro doubled up the lead with his third goal this season in the 70th minute and Mau Uiagalelei added an insurance goal about six minutes later; it was his third goal this year and gave Mililani a 3-0 lead.
Kalani's lone goal — which ended Mililani's eight-match shutout streak — also took place in the 76th minute on a penalty kick by Maka Monaghan.
The East second-seeded Falcons (9-2-1) played without starting forward/attacking-mid Ethan Senter.
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