Kaiser advances to play Punahou in state water polo

The walloping of 2016 left a mark on Kaiser’s humble water polo program. On Thursday, the Cougars have a chance to make new memories against Punahou in the Stanford Carr Development/HHSAA girls water polo state championships.

Kaiser topped Kapolei 7-1 in the first round Monday at host Kamehameha, setting up a quarterfinal against the 10-time defending champion Buffanblu, who have never gone down in state tournament play.

“We’d like to at least give them a fight. Don’t let them just completely crush us,” said junior Kanoko Niimura, who scored a hat trick against the Hurricanes. “Give them a fight. If we could, maybe even win. You never know.”

With a deep rotation and speedy swimmers, OIA runner-up Kaiser (15-1) has enjoyed its finest overall season in the 15 years since water polo became an HHSAA sport. Asa Tanaka’s team advanced out of the first round for the second time in three years.

The last time? Punahou crushed the Cougars 18-4 in the quarterfinals.

“(We’ve) definitely got better,” Niimura said. “I remember at the beginning, when I was a freshman, I had no idea what I was doing. … We were put into (that) Punahou game with no seniors, just freshmen, and I remember just being really confused. But thinking from that to now, we’ve come a really long way.”

The teams met up in a preseason tournament, with the result going to the Buffanblu by a wide margin.

“What can you say? They’re unbelievably good,” Tanaka said. “You know, it would … take a miracle if we would beat them. But, I just want the girls to play hard. I don’t want them to give up. If they could do that, then we win.Play hard, don’t give up, and learn.”

Kaiser, which stunned perennial OIA champ Kahuku in the regular season, fell 9-6 to the Red Raiders in the OIA title game on April 21. The Cougars came out Monday looking to take that sting out on someone else — although Tanaka gave some of his second-stringers, including some seniors, a rare start against Kapolei, a team they’d defeated 11-7 in the league opener. This time it was scoreless after a quarter.

But keyed by Niimura’s fast-break goal in the second, Kaiser led 3-0 at halftime and tacked on three more scores in the third. Noelle Nakakura, Erin Patterson, Taylor Kuroiwa and Sarah Lorenzo had the Cougars’ other scores, while goalie Bay Hamby saved nine shots.

“Sometimes we did good, sometimes we did bad, but for the most part, they played defense, and that was what I wanted,” Tanaka said.

Kapolei kept its streak of state tournament appearances alive at 14 — second only to the perfect attendance (15) of Kahuku and Roosevelt. But Dex Lee’s Hurricanes (8-8) were young this year, and simply making it to states with the OIA’s last (sixth) berth was an accomplishment.

“Our girls got tired. Their bench is a lot deeper; they played eight, nine deep,” Lee said. “And I’ve got five, six, seven. As the game wore on, my starters got more and more tired. We tried to use our timeouts to give them rest, but that’s not enough.”

Annika Edwards, a Hurricane junior, scored at the buzzer to prevent the shutout.