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The Maui News 2022 MIL Girls Water Polo All-Stars

Charismatic Campbell emerges as POY: Lunas coaching staff recognized by peers after run to MIL title

Baldwin High School’s Keanna Campbell is joined on the MIL All-Star first team by Bears teammate Mikela De Aguiar, Lahainaluna’s Maile Cacal and Puliki Rogers, King Kekaulike’s Lia Vanderpoel and Heather Pease, and Seabury Hall’s Bella Jardine. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Keanna Campbell’s personality jumps off the page. She led her Baldwin High School girls water polo team with a constant smile on her face.

The vibrant Bears senior was second on her team in goals scored, third in the Maui Interscholastic League.

Never short on charisma, she was surprised to learn that she is the choice by the league’s coaches as The Maui News’ MIL Player of the Year.

“To hear that all the coaches chose me out of everyone of the MIL season, to pick me, I’m really thankful,” Campbell said last week.

Campbell emerged from a crowded race for the MIL POY honor.

Lahainaluna coaches and players celebrate at the end of the Lunas’ win over Baldwin in the MIL tournament championship game on April 23. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

The first team is round out by her Baldwin teammate Mikela De Aguiar, Lahainaluna’s Maile Cacal and Puliki Rogers, King Kekaulike’s Lia Vanderpoel and Heather Pease, and Seabury Hall’s Bella Jardine.

Pease is the first-team goalkeeper. De Aguiar, the MIL’s leading goal scorer with 72, is the only junior on the first team — the others are all seniors.

The first team matches the top six goal scorers in the league in statistics provided by league scorekeeper Dave Wintermeyer: De Aguiar was followed by Cacal (66 goals), Campbell (59), Rogers (58), Vanderpoel (56) and Jardine (50).

“I’ve swam with those girls, sometimes even longer than high school,” Campbell said. “To be on the same list with them is really awesome. We all get to share being voted, which is pretty awesome.”

The coaching staff of MIL champion Lahainaluna was the choice of their peers as MIL Coaches of the Year — the head coach is John Hassett, Courtney Galarita is the assistant and Bradley Mason, who did most of the in-game coaching, is a volunteer assistant.

“It really is (a team award), it’s been a collective effort, including our senior captains Puliki Rogers and Maile Cacal,” Mason said of the COY nod. “With so many new players and so many people new to the game, it really took a collective effort to get everybody on board and get caught up to speed with all the different aspects of water polo, kind of the components of the game.”

Mason said the Lahainaluna roster itself was the highlight of the season. He credited the showdowns between the Lunas and MIL runners-up Bears for making each team better, especially after the two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

“It was a fun group to be around,” Mason said. “It’s hard work, you know, water polo is not an easy sport and to win MILs you really have to put in your all every day. And what’s so great about this group is they really are fun to be around and so it makes that work enjoyable.

“When you can go and have fun every day in a sport that’s really challenging, where you’re asking them to push themselves kind of to their full potential, it makes it just that much more fun for everyone involved. I think that was something the coaches really enjoyed and appreciated about this group.”

Campbell, who plans to compete on the club water polo and swim teams at Dixie State University next year, was nearly always in the middle of the action for the Bears.

“Keanna truly leads by example, both in and out of the water,” Baldwin co-head coach Lauren Shinozuka said in an email to The Maui News. “She brings her intensity and drive to every practice, and motivates her teammates through her positive and encouraging attitude. She reminds her teammates to never take themselves too seriously and enjoy the game.

“Her discipline and enthusiasm continues to inspire the other players on the team. We wish her the best of luck next year at Dixie State. She knows she will always be a part of Baldwin Water Polo.”

Campbell joins an impressive list of recent MIL Players of the Year, including Baldwin graduates Jacsen Donohue and Rebecca Buenrostro-Gallimore, and Lahainaluna’s Lalelei Mataafa, all of whom are college players. Buenrostro-Gallimore was an assistant coach for the Bears this season.

“I grew up with Jacsen playing water polo,” Campbell said. “She’s the one who made me join water polo in the first place and remember playing with her my freshman and sophomore year. I always looked up to her so much, she would always be yelling at me, telling me the right things to do.

“She’s a big part, I’d say, of my water polo career.”

With graduation looming on Friday evening, Campbell is ready to move on to Dixie State.

“Oh, I’m stoked for it,” she said. “It’s going to be a big change from everything I know because it’s in Utah, it’s in the desert — it’s time to leave the island and experience some new things, meeting people and just learn how to be an adult.”

She will miss Baldwin and Bears water polo, especially after missing two seasons.

“Oh, it was so much fun, like, surprisingly so much fun,” Campbell said. “I didn’t expect to love it so much, but my team was so great. They’re definitely the closest water polo team I’ve ever played with. All the girls I’ve known for a while, but some of them didn’t play polo, so it was good to bring friends to the sport. We’re all really close.”

She went out of her way to thank her parents Pinky and Neal Campbell.

“They’ve been supportive throughout all of this, they never really been the parents to, like, force me to do anything,” Keanna Campbell said. “I’ve kind of just always loved to go to practice.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

*****

Second Team

School Year

Jacqueline Brandon … Kamehameha Maui … Senior

Kuumaka Ruidas … Kamehameha Maui … Senior

Gracie Turnbull … Baldwin … Senior

Caroline Belew … Seabury Hall … Junior

Mia Kosianowski … Lahainaluna … Sophomore

Lilly Barrett … King Kekaulike … Sophomore

Ella Weber … Kamehameha Maui … Junior

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