Heading into penalty kicks with a championship at stake, McKinley coach John Mai did what he could to ease the pressure on the Tigers.
“Once we got into the shootout, I told them, ‘Win or lose, nobody expected us to be here,’ ” the Tigers’ ninth-year coach said.
After all, the Tigers entered the OIA Division II boys soccer playoffs at 1-8-1, just enough to get into the six-team bracket.
Four days and three victories later, the Tigers owned the title.
Trailing Kalaheo 2-0 at halftime of Saturday’s final, McKinley rallied behind two second-half goals by senior Kotaro Minawa, survived two 10-minute overtime periods, then won the shootout 6-5 to capture the program’s first OIA championship since 1977.
“One win and one tie and we’re champions now,” McKinley goalkeeper Cristian Orlando Guzman Diaz said after the 3-2 win at Kapolei. “It’s just a team effort and we all did great tonight.”
With just four substitutes available on the bench, the Tigers edged Aiea 2-1 on Wednesday, then rallied from a 1-0 halftime deficit against Waipahu to win Thursday’s semifinal match 2-1 and clinch a state tournament berth.
“The schedule, as it is, is rough for D-II teams,” said Mai, a 2003 McKinley graduate. “I told them the first eight games of the season is preseason to us … but that’s going to help us get better.
“Once we got in, it’s a brand-new season — we’re motivated and it was all heart.”
Through 40 minutes on Saturday, it appeared Kalaheo, the OIA East’s top seed, would ease to its first OIA D-II title since 2013.
The Mustangs (5-6-1) controlled the action throughout the first half, firing 11 shots to McKinley’s two. Freshman Zanskar Stohler scored in the 23rd minute and Mark Oropeza converted Haden Brown’s corner kick into a score less than four minutes later.
“A 2-0 lead is a very dangerous lead, because no matter how much you try, you back up a little, you feel comfortable,” Kalaheo coach John Nakagawa said.
Minawa, who moved to Hawaii from Japan last May, dribbled past the Kalaheo defense and fired his first goal in the 55th minute. He struck again with about six minutes left in regulation on a header off a corner kick from Nghia Nguyen.
“(I) just kept telling everyone to have fun and just play like we always do and do it as a team, don’t be nervous,” Minawa said through teammate and interpreter Frank Aizawa.
The match went to penalty kicks and the teams were tied 3-3 through five shooters. Both teams converted on their next two attempts and after Guzman Diaz cradled a shot to give the Tigers the advantage, McKinley senior Brian Anderson buried his shot into the left corner to give the Tigers the title.
“I was just walking, I couldn’t feel nothing but pain in my stomach. I was so scared,” Anderson said. “At that moment I just chose one corner and stuck to it and carried through.
“I prayed the whole time. I was dying, but we made it through.”
Both teams clinched berths in the eight-team Division II bracket of The Queen’s Medical Center/HHSAA Boys Soccer Championships with their semifinal victories on Thursday. Waipahu defeated Waialua in the third-place game 4-2 on Saturday to earn the OIA’s last D-II state tournament berth.
