Get to the title game as many times as Kapolei has and a team is bound to win a few championships.

After advancing to the OIA boys soccer final for the eighth time in 16 years, the Hurricanes collected their third league championship Saturday night with a 1-0 shutout of Mililani at Castle.

Sophomore Eric Aquino scored the game’s only goal in the 24th minute and it was the Hurricanes defense, which limited the Trojans’ scoring chances, that made the difference in this run to the title.

“I want to put all of the (credit) for the defense because they locked it down for us and did what we needed to do,” Aquino said.

Kapolei shut out the top seeds from both the East (Kaiser) and the West in a span of 48 hours to earn the OIA’s seeded berth in the state tournament.

The four teams who advanced to the semifinals had combined to win the past 15 OIA boys soccer titles. Kapolei (11-0-2), which finished second behind Mililani (11-1-1) in the regular season, was the team to survive after two physically draining matches.

“We said when we got to the final four the team who was going to break first defensively (was the key),” Kapolei co-head coach Ryan Lau said. “We felt that we played an excellent offensive team in Kaiser and then a championship-level team in Mililani and in both instances we took away what they wanted to do and were able to still do what we wanted to do.”

The teams played to a 1-1 tie in the regular season and again played a tightly contested match.

Both teams had good looks at the goal early. A free kick for Kapolei from 25 yards out was put on the back post for a diving header attempt that went into the side of the net.

The Hurricanes had a goal taken off the board two minutes later on an offsides call only to see Mililani have a throw-in take one bounce off a foot and hit the top of the crossbar without going in.

The scoreless tie ended in the 24th minute when Aquino, while surrounded by multiple defenders, fit a shot past the goalkeeper into the lower left corner of the net for a 1-0 Kapolei lead.

It was the third goal allowed in the past two games by Mililani, which surrendered only five goals throughout the entire regular season.

“We practice on pass-and-move and I wanted for my teammate to go down the line,” Aquino said. “I saw the run-in and we had the connection, the one-two, and I put it on the left bottom corner.”

Once the Hurricanes had the lead, they tightened up defensively while continuing to press the ball forward.

Twice in the last few minutes, Kapolei had one-on-one opportunities to put the ball in the back of the net, but Mililani goalkeeper Rusty Crowder made some key saves to keep his team alive.

The Trojans had some opportunities on set pieces in the first half but had a much harder time lining up scoring chances in the second 40 minutes.

“Our inability to connect passes really hurt us a little bit,” Mililani coach Steven McGehee said. “We never got a lot of chances on them the last game and we didn’t get a lot of chances this game, but the ones we did have we should have done a little better with.”