Andre Estaniqui scored his team-leading fifth and sixth goal of the season on a pair of penalty kicks in the first five minutes of the second half to tie and take the lead for the Trojans, who improved to 3-0 in league play. Brian Bautista | SL

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Tue, Dec 6, 2022 @ Kapolei

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Mililani

3

Kapolei

2

Final	1st	2nd	OT	2OT	PK	Tot
Mililani (15-1-0)	1	2	-	-	-	3
Kapolei (10-4-0)	2	0	-	-	-	2

A. Estaniqui (43’ 45’)   K. McGehee (34’)   A. Kiesel (2’)   J. Anderson (27’)

The defending OIA champs were on the ropes early — and they rosed to the occasion Tuesday night.

Mililani rallied from a 2-0 deficit to stun host Kapolei for a 3-2 win in an OIA West boys soccer match at the Alvin Nagasako Athletic Complex.

Andre Estaniqui scored his team-leading fifth and sixth goal of the season on a pair of penalty kicks in the first five minutes of the second half to tie and take the lead for the Trojans, who improved to 3-0 in league play.

Aleki Kiesel got the Hurricanes (2-1) on the board early with a long shot through traffic in the second minute. Jesse Anderson had a similar shot in the 27th minute to double Kapolei's lead before Mililani got a much needed goal in the 34th minute from Keegan McGehee to keep the game at reach at the half.

"All credit to Kapolei, they came out ready to fight and we weren't ready so they had to kind of dig deep," said Mililani coach Steven McGehee.

"It was good that we got a goal in the first half to kind of make the deficit not so big, but real tough game. Got a couple of goals called back, but in the end we have a lot of work ahead of us to make sure we don't make that kind of mistakes again."

While the Trojans made the mistakes in the first half, it was the Hurricanes that fell prey to some miscues to start the second half.

Estaniqui's match-tying PK in the 43rd minute came virtue of a foul in the box when the center official called a foul on a Kapolei player for jumping into another player. His go-ahead PK two minutes later was a result of a hip check. Both of Estaniqui's PKs were with him kicking towards the right side of the net.

"Just a clash of players, the referees though it was a foul and we benefitted from it, but you can't rely on the the referee to give us games, we have to go out and take care of things," said coach McGehee.

Kapolei coach Keoki Haole said after the game that winning the first 15 minutes of the game would be key, knowing that Mililani is always a tough game, but he also said that a lack of experience in real-time situations culminated in losing the lead.

"A lot of them was getting too excited, they're not used to these type of situations where they're in a lead like this," said Haole.

Some of those nerves and anxiety ultimately led to a pair of fouls in the box, which decided the game.

"Unfortunately those things happen," Haole said of the fouls. "We were just being over aggressive in the box. We obviously know that you shouldn't do those kind of silly aggressiveness, especially if there was no danger going back into those areas. It's something that we have to live and learn from."

Haole also added that there is a lack of experienced center backs on his roster.

"Our center backs, this is actually first time that they're center backs at all. We have no center backs this season. Had to transition them from outside back to center back so those kind of things are still new to them, so it's just something we have to work on."

Meanwhile McGehee gave credit to center backs Justin Tilton and Parker Patterson for organizing the defense to help limit any more goals after going down 2-0. The Trojans also made adjustments by giving less cushion when the Kapolei attackers were on their side of the pitch.

"They stepped it up after being soft the first 10 minutes," McGehee said. "We just tried to press the ball and not give them time to think."

The Trojans will look the extend their winning streak when they travel to Waialua next while Kapolei will try to get back in the win column with a home game against Waianae. Both games are slated for Friday.

Note: A portion of the first half was played using a two-person officiating crew. One of the three referees that carried over from the junior varsity contest unexpectedly could not do their duties for undisclosed reasons and had to leave. A replacement official eventually arrived with at least 10 minutes left in the first half.