LIHUE — Only one American Youth Soccer Organization, Region 940 12 and Under team advanced to the finals on Monday. Ashley Mecham netted a hat trick, or three goals, to lead the Cotton Candy to a 7-1 win over Kapaa
LIHUE — Only one American Youth Soccer Organization, Region 940 12 and Under team advanced to the finals on Monday.
Ashley Mecham netted a hat trick, or three goals, to lead the Cotton Candy to a 7-1 win over Kapaa to become the only Region 940 team to advance to the finals of the Will Veeck soccer tournament.
The Cotton Candy, prevailing over the Candy Crushers during the Region 940 championships last week, got goals from Jazzy, Tori, Braelyn and Amelia while Maya Loughead netted Kapaa’s only goal.
Region 940 controlled the field of four games, two featuring Girls Under 12 and two featuring Boys Under 12 which was punctuated with bouts of passing rain at the North Vidinha fields.
Ashley Contrades and Kayla “Kanoe” Kawamura each netted hat tricks to lead the Haaheo, a Region 941 team, to a 6-3 win over the Candy Crushers.
Contrades netted two goals in the first half to push Haaheo to a 3-2 lead at the break before Kawamura iced the win on a pair of second-half goals.
Courtney Rosa netted two goals, one in each half, and Carlie Lindsey added a first-half goal for the Candy Crushers.
Region 940 boys swept the two Boys Under 12 matches, the Northshore battling a tenacious Westsiderzzz defense to a 5-1 win while Wailua took Koloa, 3-2 in a shootout.
Westsiderzzz’s Andrew King’s goal was answered by Northshore’s Emiliano De La Mora and Luke Schmidt for the 2-1 Northshore go-ahead at the break.
Casey Greenwood added two goals coming back from the half and Keanu Brown netted a score to ice the win.
On the fourth field, Koloa United got goals from Jacob, the goalkeeper for the second half and the shootout, and Binh.
Wailua got its goals from Moses Esperito-Mau in the first half, and a goal from Justin Paleka in the second half forced the shootout.
Despite Wailua missing its first shootout kick, the orangeshirts persisted and in the final kick, Reese Nakamura was able to snake the ball past Jacob to ensure the win after Wailua goalkeeper Chysen Lagunes-Rapozo swatted the Koloa ball wide.
“This is another time when my grandson (Chysen) comes to save me,” said Wailua coach Bobby Rapozo following the nail-biter.
Teams advance to the final games starting at 9 a.m. Saturday.
