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Na Alii boys, girls begin MIL title defenses with victories

By Dakota Grossman 5 min read

PUKALANI -- The King Kekaulike High School boys and girls soccer teams both won Maui Interscholastic League Division I championships last season.

Both squads are off to strong starts in defense of their titles.

The Na Alii boys kick-started their season with a 6-0 victory over Seabury Hall, while the King Kekaulike girls continued its unbeaten start with a 9-0 win over the Spartans on Saturday night at King Kekaulike Stadium.

Last year was the first time in school history that Na Alii had won the boys and girls MIL soccer titles in the same season.

They hope to do it again.

"It's pretty cool, but it puts a target on both of our backs to try and be better, and everyone is going to be giving their best when they come play against us," said junior midfielder Connor Prados, who scored two goals in the King Kekaulike boys' opener. "But it's pretty cool watching (the Na Alii girls) play and pushing us to win games and to be better just like them."

Although it was a lopsided win, Prados said his team's takeaway was taking advantage of the shots at goal, including working on headers, and to open more opportunities with cleaner assists.

"We can definitely move better as a unit on the field and put away the chances we had because I feel like I had eight chances and I only scored two," he said. "I'm thankful for my friend Hunter Devlin for assisting all the boys."

Prados and junior midfielder Devlin are two of the top returners from last year's championship boys team.

Coach Barry McKay said this season will be a bit challenging after losing key seniors from last season's squad, but Na Alii are optimistic about filling those shoes.

"The same plan like every season is just to get everybody out there, see who's going to play where, and we're still trying to piece it all together," McKay said. "We have a good group of boys out there, so our game plan with them is to work hard and we'll effectively defend our title. We lost our goalie so we're working with our two other goalies right now, so we have a good chance and we're just trying to figure everything out and put it all together in the middle."

On their home turf, the Na Alii boys kept the pressure near the Spartans' goal most the game on Saturday night, starting when Prados made a clean pass to teammate Cole Uyehara within the box to score in the opening five minutes.

Seabury goalkeeper Kalei Chin made a few big saves to keep Seabury in the game, but Devlin's powerful kick in the 20th minute pushed the Na Alii lead to 2-0.

Prados scored in the 44th minute on Devlin's assist, and about nine minutes later, Shayden Aoyagi made a quick cross to Prados for a 1-yard goal into the right-corner pocket. Paxti Laborde tacked on another goal and Finn Bediamol converted on a penalty kick in the 76th minute.

The Spartans (0-1-0) played short-handed and did not substitute the entire match. First-year Seabury boys coach Jan Waechli said that the main goal for his Division II team is "winning one match at least."

"That was real tough, it was hard not having substitutes, but they held up very good," Waechli said. "Half the team didn't show up today, so it's super hard. It's definitely not easy."

The Na Alii girls, who are seeking their third straight D-I league title, improved to 3-0-0 while the Seabury girls fell to 0-3-0.

"We told the ladies to stay in their game, we wanted them to work our game and also try to stay focused on our passing game," Na Alii girls coach Gundi Dancil said. "Even though with the personnel that Seabury has, it's still important for us to continue staying together and improving in our game because it's still early in the season."

Top returnees for Na Alii include junior forward Teani Arakawa -- last year's MIL Player of the Year -- junior Jaycie-Ann Valoroso and senior defender Zoe Asue. Na Alii also gained Seabury transfer Madelyn Dougherty, a sophomore forward.

Dancil gave kudos to sophomore midfielder Ui Kaaihue, who led King Kekaulike with three goals on Saturday.

"She's a worker, she works on her skills," he said. "She has a good ability."

With Na Alii up 2-0 after halftime, Kaaihue made back-to-back close-range shots by dribbling past the defense into the box in the 41st and 43rd minutes.

Arakawa shot high over the goalie's hands about five yards out for a goal in the 46th minute.

Dougherty added two more goals while Mia Kamakaiwi and Cheyana Costa-Neikter also scored for the Na Alii before the referee called the game in the 71st minute.

"Even though it was lopsided, the girls played hard. The first half was amazing, you know, we held them to 2-0, that was really our goal for the game was just to try to sort of keep the score low," Spartans girls coach Steven Cornell said. "We know that (King Kekaulike) is a lot better team than we are, but we just wanted to keep the score low but it didn't seem to happen after halftime.

"We're a young team, so we're just starting -- my wife and I just started coaching this team -- so we're looking forward to building this team as we go."

* Dakota Grossman is at dgrossman@mauinews.com

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