Kapolei dominates Aiea to stay tied atop the OIA West

How similar are the Kapolei and Mililani boys soccer teams?

They both followed up their scoreless tie with identical 4-0 wins over Aiea.

Kapolei had the easiest of times with third-place Aiea at Kapolei on Tuesday night, beating Na Alii 4-0.

Aiea lost to Mililani, which is tied for first in the OIA West with Kapolei, 4-0 earlier this month.

“They were kind of outmanned,” Kapolei coach Ryan Lau said. “We did well against a good team, but we still want to work on ball winning, not letting teams out. At times we were a little consistent with that.”

The Hurricanes needed only six minutes to score their first goal, with Keo Ponce getting a through ball in front of the box, outdribbling Aiea’s Brooks Tanonaka and beating keeper Micah Peters-Valdez top right. It was Ponce’s team-leading eighth goal of the season.

Kapolei continued its domination after that, putting 18 shots on goal in the first half to Aiea’s four.

Despite Na Alii being shorthanded — they had only two players on their bench, including second-leading scorer Kazu Shima, when Taylor Passwater left with an injury in the 31st minute — Kapolei had trouble getting the ball past Aiea’s stacked defense. Na Alii have been playing with just eleven players for a couple of weeks now.

The Hurricanes scored their second goal in the 39th minute when Dakota Kato lofted a high throw from the corner that settled in the grass in the middle of the scrum. Vineal Singh controlled the ball right in front of Peters-Valdez, who went low for it but found it sailing over his head when he got there.

Nothing changed after the break, with Singh getting a 1–on-1 with the keeper three minutes in and beating him left. Dylan Orian matched Ponce with his eighth goal of the season nine minutes later when he tapped in a perfect pass from Carlos Harvey that Peters-Valdez tried to track down only to see it elude his grasp and spin to Orian.

“They have a lot of skill guys and some speed,” Aiea coach Jon Shirafuji said. “They were challenging. I wish we could have challenged them more. It is just a matter of repetitions at practice.”

Aiea’s offense consisted of three long balls to Derek Ogawa-Staples, the OIA West’s leading scorer, but Kapolei’s tight defense never let him get a clean look at the goal. When he did turn the corner and get a run, the Hurricanes effectively funneled him to the middle of the field, where captain Brandon Begonia, who marked Ogawa-Staples in a 3-1 win in the OIA playoffs last year, could strip him of the ball. Those chances were few and far between, though. Kapolei keeper Aldo Ramirez made only four saves, none of them difficult.

“I was pretty bored at times,” Begonia said. “My team was doing such a good job winning the 50/50 balls, they didn’t have much chance to score.”

The Hurricanes have given up only four goals this year and held Mililani scoreless in a tie early on. Aiea has given up 11 goals, with eight of them to Mililani and Kapolei.

The Hurricanes (6-0-1) finish the season with Leilehua (2-4-1) on Friday and Radford (3-3) on Tuesday. If both they and Mililani win out, there will be a coin flip for the top seed in the upcoming OIA tournament.

Aiea plays Campbell(3-3-1) on Friday and Pearl City (5-2) on Saturday. While the Hurricanes are fighting for the top spot, Na Alii can expect to limp into the playoffs unless Leilehua can beat both Mililani and Kapolei.