LIHUE — The beat goes on for the Menehune boys. Waimea High School’s varsity boys soccer team knocked off Kauai High, 3-nil, Wednesday evening at Vidinha Stadium. Through four games into the Kauai Interscholastic Federation season, Waimea (4-0-0 KIF) is
LIHUE — The beat goes on for the Menehune boys.
Waimea High School’s varsity boys soccer team knocked off Kauai High, 3-nil, Wednesday evening at Vidinha Stadium.
Through four games into the Kauai Interscholastic Federation season, Waimea (4-0-0 KIF) is undefeated.
“We’ve started off the season well,” said Waimea head coach Kapono Chong-Hanssen. “We had a couple of setbacks. (Senior goalkeeper Noah Alejandro) was hurt today, so we had to play our backup goalkeeper (senior Devon Hartsell). Proud of the guys for playing through. We just want to keep on improving. We still have things we can work on as a team.”
Menehune freshman forward Shayden Duldulao scored the opening goal at the 22nd minute from inside the penalty area. Junior sweeper Chris Ishikawa then scored Waimea’s second goal off a penalty kick right before halftime.
“We just had more opportunities. We have some individual talent. Those guys can score,” Chong-Hanssen said about the team’s offensive performance. “To be honest, I didn’t really like the way we played in the first half very much. We got two goals, but we didn’t really capitalize on the things we had wanted to capitalize on. So I’m happy we scored, but I think that was more of a reflection of the whole team working, just having more opportunities and you’re going to get a few.”
Duldulao has scored a goal in each of the past four games.
“I would say me just being in the right place at the right time,” Duldulao said about scoring in each game so far. “That’s about it. I’m not really special. … Just being in the right places and waiting for the ball to pop out.”
“We did well on getting first to the ball. We did good on working the ball around, just playing our game and not getting angry,” he added.
Sophomore midfielder Kody Gardner scored Waimea’s third goal during stoppage time at the end of the second half to cap off the Menehune win.
The Red Raiders goalkeeper was out of the 18-yard box and Gardner took a shot from distance. A pair of Kauai defenders stood in front of the net attempting to block Gardner’s shot, but to no avail.
“The boys placed hard. It just wasn’t meant to be tonight,” said Kauai High head coach Mark Brandeburg. “They (Waimea) are beatable, but they just play really hard and aggressively. Really hard, aggressive soccer. That’s all I can say.”
He added though the team has to win, all his players can do is to keep working hard.
Waimea will next play against Kapaa at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Vidinha Stadium. Kauai High (0-4-0 KIF) will play Island School at 5:30 p.m. also at Vidinha.
w Kauai High School’s varsity girls soccer team (3-1-1 KIF) scored five goals in the first half en route to defeating Waimea, 6-nil, following the varsity boys match.
Red Raiders junior midfielder Kaitlynne Bukoski scored two goals in the opening minutes of the match. Senior forward Lyndsie Kashima, senior forward Aleigha Scovel and senior midfielder Macy Tamura each found the net to round out the first half.
Senior midfielder Michaela Licke then scored at the 73rd minute to cap of the Red Raider girls’ win.
Kauai High will next play Island School at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Vidinha Stadium. Waimea (0-4-1 KIF) will play Kapaa at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Vidinha as well.
