Chargers hold off Trojans

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Pearl City and Roosevelt earned OIA championships in girls soccer and the league's top seed in the tournament last night.

The Chargers won the Red crown with a narrow 2-1 win over Mililani, while the Rough Riders won the White with a 5-0 drubbing of Waialua.

It was Pearl City's first league title since 2001. Roosevelt had never won the OIA.

The teams will go into the state championships on Jan. 30 as the league's best hope of ending ILH dominance.

An OIA school has not won the state girls soccer title since Pearl City in 1997. The ILH has won every title since.

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This was the one that counted.

With Pearl City's third victory of the season over Mililani coming on the Oahu Interscholastic Association's biggest stage, the Chargers claimed the Red Division girls championship last night, 2-1 over the rival Trojans at Kapolei.

Playoff berths Ten OIA girls soccer teams earned spots in the state tournament beginning Jan. 30 Division I 1. Pearl City (14-0-1) 2. Mililani (11-4) 3. Kaiser (9-4-2) 4. Kalani (12-2-1) 5. Moanalua (9-5-1) 6. Kapolei (9-4-1) Division II 1. Roosevelt (12-1) 2. Waialua (10-2-1) 3. Campbell (10-2-1) 4. Kaimuki (5-6-1)

It's the first OIA title for undefeated Pearl City (14-0-1) since 2001 and first since the league split into Red and White subdivisions before last season. Mililani (11-4), meanwhile, has four titles this century, which often came at Pearl City's expense. Both teams have already qualified for the state tournament this year, and could meet again.

"We've done it a number of times in the past where we had to play Mililani five times in one year, and for these kids to beat them three times in a row, that's really quite an accomplishment," said Pearl City coach Frank Baumholtz III, who's coached with the Chargers for 20 years, but earned his first title co-coaching with Tracee Kono. "This one is sweet, it's a great bunch of kids."

Meghan Fuller scored the opening goal and Erika Kim Seu tacked on another for the Chargers before the Trojans furiously worked to tie the game in the waning moments. They nearly succeeded, with Chelsea Miyake scoring with about 5 minutes left and several more shots missed narrowly or were saved by Charger goalkeeper Myra Yamamoto.

Call Fuller the Trojan assassin. The senior forward scored the winning goals in the two 1-0 Charger victories over Mililani during the regular season, and even came off the bench to score at the 38th minute for her team-leading 14th goal of the season.

That happened after getting substituted out by Baumholtz for some encouragement to run at balls earlier.

She took a lob pass from Tami Hashimoto, which bounced a couple of times ahead of Fuller toward the penalty box. Mililani keeper Joleen Realin and Fuller raced to the ball, but the forward's pure speed and momentum took her there first, and she batted the ball down and around Realin for an open shot at the net to give the Chargers a 1-0 halftime lead.

"Honestly I have no clue what it is, but I have to assume that it's this team," Fuller said, gesturing at her cheering teammates.

"How we work together, how we always push ourselves even when we get scored on, and go even harder."

Pearl City went up 2-0 at 71:00 behind a second-effort shot by Kim Seu and appeared to have the game easily secured.

Baumholtz fears 2-0 leads, and the deuce-phobia proved justified this time. Two minutes later Miyake played a ball over the head of Yamamoto to cut the lead to a goal.

"It was interesting that we were able to stay with them and come back after that 2-0," Trojans coach Ray Akiona said. "I'm very proud of my team for not giving up all the way to the end."

It was only the second score on Pearl City during the entire OIA season. Before the playoffs, no league team had put a goal by the Chargers -- a source of both confidence and anxiety for Yamamoto.

When Kahuku took a 1-0 lead on them in the quarterfinals, the keeper considered it a good thing -- the pressure was finally off to shut out everybody. So when Mililani scored late, she didn't panic.

"After that, we didn't have to worry about getting scored on so it was a big deal for us," Yamamoto said.

OIA WHITE CHAMPIONSHIP

Roosevelt 5, Waialua 0

Freshman forward Kristin Ho scored a hat trick to lead Roosevelt over Waialua in the OIA White Division championship last night at Kapolei.

Ho equaled her entire goal output from the regular season in helping the Rough Riders (12-1) to their first OIA title.

Roosevelt dealt Waialua (10-2-1) its only loss during league play and had its number yet again by scoring three goals -- two by Ho -- in an eight-minute span in the first half.

"It felt really good but I had a lot of help from my teammates," Ho said. "It's all them." Roosevelt gave up only one goal the entire OIA season and playoffs.

"I didn't expect it to be this spread apart," said Waialua coach Charlyn Sales. "I'm really proud of my girls, though -- they never gave up."