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Kalani Takase | ScoringLiveFebruary 2, 2024, 8:59pm
Fri, Feb 2, 2024 @ Waipio
WAIPIO — Kamehameha will get its shot at redemption Saturday night.
Madison Sharrer scored two goals, including the game-winner in the 66th minute, and assisted on another goal to lift No. 2 Kamehameha to a 3-2 semifinal win over No. 3 Campbell on a chilly evening at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex Friday night.
The win helped the Warriors improve to 11-2 and put them into Saturday's title game of the Motiv8 Foundation/HHSAA Division I Girls Soccer State Championships, while the Sabers suffered their first loss to fall to 12-1-2.
Kamehameha will face top-ranked Punahou for the state championship. The Buffablu defeated No. 4 Mililani in the late semifinal Friday, 4-0.
Sharrer, a junior forward, scored a goal in each half and also assisted on Mya Pasion's first-half goal against Campbell.
"She took over the game and we've been waiting for her to do that all year because she's capable of doing it. We'd like to see more of that out of her, but glad she did it today," Kamehameha coach Missy Moore said.
It was Sharrer's fifth and sixth goals of the season and her first multi-goal contest all year.
"I think that I'm definitely trying my best to be a leader as a junior and trying my best to lift the team up with me," Sharrer said.
The Warriors opened the scoring about 11 minutes into the contest. Freshman Kaahupahau Montgomery made a run down the left flank before she sent a cross into the box. Her pass was deflected by a Campbell defender, but Sharrer was there to put away the second chance with her right foot.
"I honestly don't really remember," Sharrer recalled. "It was just really chaotic, but the ball had came in and I saw their defender just hit it right off of her leg and I was just there and one-timed it in past low on the ‘keeper."
Just two minutes after Sharrer scored, she assisted on the Warriors' next goal. Sharrer dribbled past three defenders on the left side of the 18-yard box, then dropped off a pass to Mya Pasion, who slid her right-footed shot past Sabers' goalkeeper Amaris Ishikawa.
"That was another part of our game plan, actually, getting the ball down the line, beating our defenders and then I was able to get past one more and we were looking for those slot balls back, so I heard Mya and I just played it right to her feet and she had a beautiful finish," Sharrer said.
However, Campbell began turning the tide in the minutes that followed. Jaylee Curran served a free kick into the box, which led to the Sabers' first shot on goal in the 24th minute. Only a minute later, a throw-in found the feet of Miyah Suster, who made a turn to her left and fired a right-footed rocket from about 16 yards out into the right side of the goal.
Kamehameha's one-goal cushion held until the 59th minute, when Jaylee Curran blasted a free kick from well beyond midfield that took four bounces before Ava Rose Whitmer timed up her left-footed shot into the bottom left corner of the goal for the equalizer.
Moore said that the Sabers took advantage of the Warriors' failure to stay within their game plan.
"We had a game plan and we stuck to that game plan probably the first twenty-five minutes and then just had a lapse in thinking and went back to playing a way that wouldn't make us successful in this game. If we had just stuck to our game plan the entire time, the results would have been a lot better," Moore said.
Sharrer admitted that the Warriors may have taken their proverbial foot off the gas pedal after their pair of early goals.
"I think we had let down a little bit, so once they had scored their goal they brought out great energy so it was just about keeping that energy going and luckily when we came out in that second half we came out even harder, so that's why we were able to get that goal and just keep pushing," Sharrer said.
The score was tied for about seven minutes until Sharrer put her team ahead for good. Montgomery served a ball from the right side of the pitch into the 18-yard box. Sharrer, who managed to turn on the jets and get past the Campbell backline, got her right foot on the long pass and slotted it in for the go-ahead goal.
"We were actually looking for that, taking it down the line and then playing an early ball in across, so Ku (Montgomery) played a perfect ball and luckily I was there, right at my feet and I just hit it in, right past the ‘keeper," Sharrer said.
Ishikawa, Campbell's senior goalie who came up with several key late-game saves in the OIA championship game two weeks ago, was left frozen on Sharrer's game-winner.
"That ball was perfectly placed," Sabers coach James Curran said.
Curran said his team was able to get back into the game after a calming some nerves early on.
"I just settled the girls down. You know, it could be a mental thing, we train one way the whole way and sometimes in big situations like this players revert to their old ways, whatever they did in club, so they lose kind of focus on some of the things that we were working on, but they regrouped second half and stuck to our game plan and they made it a game," Curran said.
Conversely, Sharrer said the Warriors remained positive after the Sabers equalized midway through the second half.
"Right after we got scored on, everybody was telling each other, ‘We're good, we're good. Keep pushing, keep pushing,' and I think that's really important when it's a close game like that, is just to pick each other up and to let each other know that we're still in this and we can come back," Sharrer shared.
Kamehameha was coming off of a hard-fought quarterfinal win over third-seeded Kamehameha-Maui Thursday. Sharrer assisted on the game-winning goal by Ionare Vee.
"She's in the right mindset, for sure, for a state tournament. She's been here before so she knows what to expect and she's hungry for it," Moore said.
Campbell, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, was seeking its first appearance in a state final since 2019, when it lost to Kamehameha in the title game.
Kamehameha will be playing in its 16th championship game all-time and fifth straight. It lost to Punahou, 3-0, in the final a year ago.
"We're definitely excited to go out there and battle it out with them again. Punahou is a great team, we always battle it out with them so (Saturday) our game plan is just to give it everything we got, leave it all on the field — last game — and I'm very blessed and excited to play my last game with these girls in the championship," Sharrer said.
The Warriors and Buffanblu have met in each of the last two state finals.
Kamehameha will try for its 12th state championship in program history and its sixth under Moore.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Waipio main stadium. The game will be preceeded by the Division II title game between Kamehameha-Hawaii and PAC-5 at 5 p.m.
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