KIHEI — As the Baldwin and Lahainaluna high school girls water polo teams each won their Maui Interscholastic League games Tuesday afternoon to kick-start the regular season, their leading scorers were stoked to be back in the pool.

Mikela DeAguiar led the Bears, last season’s MIL runners-up, with 10 goals to defeat King Kekaulike 12-8 before Zhi Clark scored five to boost the defending league champion Lunas to a 15-6 win over Kamehameha Maui at the Kihei Aquatic Center.

“It feels so exciting, we’ve been working really hard for this game,” Clark said. “Kamehameha did really good today, they are way better than last year — they upped everything. I was dying out there, but my team did amazing. We worked hard and we communicated really well, so it was so exciting getting back out into the pool.”

Since the start of the MIL’s participation in the HHSAA state water polo tournament in 2005, the Lunas and Bears have won every league title, Lahainaluna with 10 and Baldwin with six.

To stay in championship contention, Clark said the Lunas “need to keep pushing ourselves and work hard at practice.”

“Our conditioning has been crazy, but you know, communicating well and working together,” the sophomore added. “I think we can defend another MIL championship.”

The MIL’s scheduled season openers last week during spring break were not contested as Seabury Hall and King Kekaulike each forfeited two matches due to an insufficient number of players. That resulted in the Lunas coming into Tuesday’s openers already with two wins, while the Bears were 1-0.

DeAguiar, a senior who scored all but two of Baldwin’s goals against Na Alii, said she had fun in her team’s league opener.

“Oh, I loved it, the girls are so fun and super sweet,” DeAguiar said. “It was awesome working together as a team and just trying our best, trying new things and putting what we learned in practice into the game and overall, it was just a good experience.”

She said she hopes to get “lots of fun and lots of laughs” during her last season with the Bears, as well as “lots of goals, good memories, and working hard together as a team.”

Baldwin coach Lauren Shinozuka said over half the team is new this year, but DeAguiar has been “such a role model” for the rest of the players and has helped them to improve in the pool.

“It’s nice to see them in the rotation and get a feel for a real MIL game and we were very lucky to go to Oahu for a preseason tournament, where for many of our girls was the first game they have ever even seen in person, so to go from that to today, it’s been quite a journey,” Shinozuka said. “Overall, pretty happy with today with how our new girls looked, but there’s a lot more room to grow.”

During the Na Alii-Bears matchup, King Kekaulike’s Lily Barrett scored right after the first-quarter swim-off. DeAguiar scored one for the Bears at 5:48 and then just before the buzzer, teammate Kailani Ibanez found the net for a 2-1 Baldwin lead.

DeAguiar scored two more times in the second quarter to carry Baldwin to a 4-1 advantage at halftime.

It seemed to be a battle between Barrett and DeAguiar in the third as they each scored two goals within two minutes and had multiple shot attempts. With 35 seconds left, DeAguiar added another goal to make it 7-3 heading into the final quarter.

The Bears wrapped up the win with four more goals by DeAguiar. Na Alii’s Rosa Coles scored two, Maggie McGurn scored one and Barrett added two more to try and close the gap before Gabby Madariaga popped in a buzzer-beater for the final tally.

“I think we did pretty good, considering what we had — we didn’t have a full team of girls with us last week — so we didn’t have much game time with the girls and we didn’t really start real practices yet,” first-year King Kekaulike coach and 2019 grad Caroline Short said. “I think we did pretty good with what we had and hopefully in the future, we’ll do a lot better.”

In the Lunas-Warriors match, Maurii Niles scored two goals, Tara Zamani scored one, and Eden Kanekoa added another as Lahainaluna took control of the first quarter at 4-1 — Mamo Kapuni had Kamehameha’s lone goal of the frame.

There was a flurry of goals in the second quarter. The Lunas’ Noelle Storer got it started with a goal at 5:44 on the clock, but a minute later, the Warriors made clean passes down the pool to set up Ella Weber for a nice shot.

With the score 5-2, the Lunas’ Anuhea Naki lobbed the ball into the net at 3:06 before Niles tossed another one in. With under a minute left, Clark and Naki each scored a goal for a 9-2 Lahainaluna lead.

The Lunas extended their lead in the third quarter with goals from Jordan Gomez, Clark and Zamani while Arissa Kahaialii scored for the Warriors.

Clark helped Lahainaluna close out the victory with three fourth-quarter goals. Weber, Cami Nakagawa and Yale Schoppner each scored a goal for Kamehameha.

“I think it was a really good game,” Lahainaluna assistant coach and 2014 graduate Courtney Galarita said. “I think we definitely trained really hard, it definitely takes dedication and motivation. … Kamehameha, they’re always a good team to play, very good sportsmanship.”

Kamehameha Maui coach Chris Calvert also said it was a great but tough game against the Lunas.

“We hit our goals, which was to learn today and did some things well and we have a lot to work on,” Calvert said. “Our focus is on teamwork. … Hats off to the Lunas for a great game, they are a well-coached team.”

* Dakota Grossman is at dgrossman@mauinews.com

BALDWIN 12, KING KEKAULIKE 8

Baldwin 2 2 3 5–12

King Kekaulike 1 0 2 5­– 8

Goal scorers–Baldwin: Mikela DeAguiar 10, Kailani Ibanez, Gabby Madariaga. King Kekaulike: Lily Barrett 5, Rosa Coles 2, Maggie McGurn.

LAHAINALUNA 15, KAMEHAMEHA MAUI 6

Lahainaluna 4 5 3 3–15

KS Maui 1 1 1 3– 6

Goal scorers–Lahainaluna: Zhi Clark 5, Maurii Niles 3, Tara Zamani 2, Anuhea Naki 2, Eden Kanekona, Jordan Gomez, Noelle Storer. Kamehameha Maui: Ella Weber 2, Mamo Kapuni, Arissa Kahaialii, Cami Nakagawa, Yale Schoppner.

MIL WATER POLO

STANDINGS

W L Pct GB

Lahainaluna 3 0 1.000 —

Baldwin 2 0 1.000 ½

KS Maui 1 1 .500 1½

Seabury Hall 0 2 .000 2½

King Kekaulike 0 3 .000 3

Tuesday’s Results

Baldwin 12, King Kekaulike 8

Lahainaluna 15, Kamehameha Maui 6

Thursday’s Matches

Kamehameha Maui vs. Baldwin at Sakamoto Pool, 4 p.m.

Seabury Hall vs. King Kekaulike at Sakamoto Pool, 5:30 p.m.