[ HIGH SCHOOLS ]
Mililani beats soccer rival
Pearl City to improve to 7-0
For Mililani senior Justin Kim and his teammates, the road to a successful postseason always passes through rival Pearl City.
"This is a rivalry since back in the days," Kim said. "Every time we play, no matter who graduates, it's always been a competitive game. You get all the chills at the beginning of the game. We tell our freshmen how big the game is, but they don't really know how big it is until they actually experience it."
Kim and his teammates were very much on their game yesterday evening in Mililani, where they defeated the Chargers 3-1 in an Oahu Interscholastic Association West showdown. The win lifted the Trojans (7-0) into sole possession of first place in the West with games against Kapolei and Waipahu remaining. Pearl City fell to 5-1 with its first loss of the season. As the regular season hits its stretch run, Kim is hoping the Trojans will hit their stride in time for the postseason, something Mililani has been able to do the past three years en route to its three consecutive state championships.
"That's the goal of everyone (to be peaking at the right time)," he said. "We still have a lot to work on, but we're going to keep improving until the end of the year. There's always room for improvement, and as we play more games and practice together more, it's going to flow easier."
Added Mililani co-head coach Steve McGehee: "We're getting there. Like I told the boys, there are a lot of big games ahead of us. We're looking to have some fun and play strong through the rest of the season."
Mililani scored all three of its goals off set plays, two of which were set up by Kim. His pass to Brent Murakami off a throw-in inside the game's 31st minute provided the evening's most exciting play. With his back to Pearl City goalkeeper Christopher Caswell, Murakami headed in the goal that gave the Trojans a 2-0 lead.
"That was his first time doing it in a game, but we've been practicing attacking from that position," McGehee said of the play. "We should have done better (on set plays), but I guess that's me. I don't believe we should miss any of them. But I'm happy we finished out the game the way we did. It was a good win against a traditional arch rival."
Kim also displayed great athleticism in setting up Tyler Kilborn with an insurance goal less than five minutes after Pearl City had pulled within 2-1 on a tally by Kyle Kurashima, which had been set up by a free kick.
Pearl City was without mid-fielders Michael Domingo and Kenshiro Uki. Both will miss "a couple more weeks" while recovering from undisclosed injuries suffered in the Chargers' game with Kapolei last week, according to Pearl City coach Scott Keopuhiwa.
In addition to playing short-handed, Keopuhiwa thought the Chargers were uncharacteristically out of sync.
"It was definitely not our best game," he said. "I was disappointed in our set-play defense -- they got all three off of set plays. We need to do a better job on that. At the same time, we need to do a better job offensively of controlling the ball. We put one in, but we need to do a better job of finishing opportunities. I think Mililani is a great team, but I also think we could play a lot better."