KEAAU – Waiakea High’s girls soccer team is clearly connected.
Proof became crystal clear in a 10-second sequence Saturday night at Paiea Stadium when Jayda Cuevas-Varize dribbled to midfield and delicately sent a throughball past one Hilo High defender and in front of another on to the running foot of Kalia Franklin.
The Warriors were on the their way.
That’s because, goalkeeper Journey Morimoto said, their off-the-field bond is as strong – check out the other 79:50 of the BIIF Division I girls soccer championship.
“Typical Waiakea, all of us working together,” she said. “That’s what I like about this team. Off the field, not just on the field, we have the same connection.”
It’s an historic one.
The late-arriving rain did little to dampen a celebration that was a long time coming after the Warriors beat Hilo 2-0 for their first soccer title. Few of the players on the roster had their fingerprints on any of the previous postseason setbacks, but – make no mistake – coach Steve Petner said, “they were very aware” of the program’s glaring shortcoming “and they cared a lot.”
He made sure of it.
“He was reminding us that we could make history,” junior Riley Bockrath said. “It was kind of a season-long thing.
“We’ve been working really hard, and it was great to see the hard work pay off.”
As the Warriors celebrated their accomplishment with family and friends, former coach Jason Nakayama was making his way down from the stands to join them.
“They finally did it,” Nakayama said. “I’m so glad I was here for it.”
Nakayama coached the 2015 team that came within inches of beating Konawaena in overtime only to fall in shootout; and the 2016 team that gave up a late goal to lose to Hilo in the final; and the 2017 team that fell to the Vikings in another shootout in the final.
Waiakea had a proud girls soccer history before Saturday night, but the present is different, in part, because Franklin and Kaitlin Beatty didn’t miss.
Late in the first half, Cuevas-Varize threaded the needle to Franklin, who netted her team-high eighth goal of the season.
Beatty also was the recipient of another fine throughball, this one from Charlie Silva, surging down the right flank to score late in the second half.
“I think we did our job of winning the balls in the air and really controlling possession,” Bockrath said.
Waiakea (5-2) takes a five-match winning streak into the HHSAA tournament and a quarterfinal match Thursday, Feb. 26 at Oahu’s Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex. The Vikings (4-2-1) are BIIF runner-up for the third consecutive year and will host an HHSAA first-round match Monday, Feb. 21.
“You want to grow and keep working on different things, that’s what we did,” Petner said. “You hope for the end result to be something like this.
“When we go in, everybody is all in, and we’re all in until the end.”
Earlier in what was a choppy season for every team, it looked like the end of Waiakea’s season would come before the final. Morimoto said Petner brought Waiakea’s title drought to the team’s attention over the summer, but the Warriors’ season would start slowly. They lost their first two games, including a 3-2 loss to Hilo. Thanks to layoffs due to COVID-19 protocols, Waiakea didn’t collect its first win until Jan. 24. Fewer then three weeks later, the Warriors are BIIF champions.
“I think we didn’t start out as strong as we should have,” Morimoto said, “but I think we all had this goal to get this first win.”
