Kalaheo charged past Waianae 2-1 for its third OIA Division II girls soccer championship in the past six years Saturday night at Kaiser Stadium.

Kiana Ramie broke a 1-all tie in the 68th minute for the victory by heading in a bounding ball off of midfielder Macayla Jahnke’s long free kick. The timing could not have been much better for the Mustangs, since there had been a shift of momentum toward the Seariders.

“I knew the wind was against us, so I was trying to drop it into the box at the 6,” Jahnke said. “We’ve been practicing free kicks all the time. I’m very proud because we haven’t had the best season, but when it came time for the championships, there’s been two weeks of putting in work that’s been very intense and I definitely think all that work paid off.”

After a bit of a slow start, Kalaheo (4-7) picked up the pace by the latter part of the first half. Then, in the 25th minute, the Mustangs’ Shaelyn Kam struck first, taking a corner kick from Caroline Gainey and placing a shot into the top right corner. The 1-0 lead held up past halftime.

“All I remember is running in to the center at the 18, she (Gainey) crossed it, I chested it and then volleyed it in,” Kam said. “It’s unbelievable that we’ve come this far and are going into states. We’re building that winning mind-set and showing we are able to work together as a team.”

Waianae (3-9-1) spent a good portion of the early part of the second half in the Kalaheo defensive zone and things eventually paid off. In the 53rd minute, Chevelle Wagner-Chun headed Shaylin Lopes’ corner kick into the short side past Mustangs goalkeeper Crystal Medeiros for a 1-1 tie.

The Seariders’ effort didn’t wane. They put the pressure on all the way up until the Mustangs netted the winner 15 minutes later and beyond. But Ramie’s goal on a difficult to predict bounding free kick by Jahnke wound up being the back-breaker.

“Kalaheo is a fantastic team, well-coached, so hat’s off to them,” Waianae coach Kanani Blue (formerly Taaca, who was a five-year goalkeeper for the University of Hawaii after graduating from Kamehameha) said. “I cannot be more proud of how my team played. They really played their hearts out to the last second and that’s all I could ask for.”

With less than two minutes left in the contest, Kam nearly netted two more goals for Kalaheo, but Kamealoha stopped both screaming shots from point-blank range.

“We expected Waianae to come out tough,” Mustangs coach Alan Heu said. “They’re a physical team and they have good talent. We knew our girls had to be ready for them. There was a goal we wanted to make and we accomplished it tonight.”

Heu knows his team was fortunate to get the winning goal when it did.

“That was the thing,” he said. “They (the Seariders) weren’t going to go ahead and let us walk in and score another one.”

Kalaheo also captured OIA crowns in 2014 and ’16. The Mustangs denied the Seariders in their bid for a first OIA title. Both teams will be competing in the upcoming D-II state tournament.