Lunas rally past Bears for MIL tourney title
KIHEI — When it comes to girls water polo in the Maui Interscholastic League, two programs stand at the top of the mountain: Baldwin and Lahainaluna high schools.
Even after a two-year shutdown due to COVID-19, that didn’t change in 2022.
The Bears and Lunas will play for the MIL title today at 4 p.m. at Kihei Aquatic Center after the Lunas won a dramatic, come-from-behind 18-17 decision over the Bears on Saturday in the MIL tournament final at KAC.
The Lunas came back from 3-0, 9-5, 10-6 and 13-9 deficits. They didn’t lead until senior Puliki Rogers’ skip shot from long range gave them a 17-16 lead with 1 minute, 51 seconds to play.
“It doesn’t get much better than that if you’re a sports fan, man, that’s as good as it gets,” Lahainaluna assistant coach Bradley Mason said. “These girls have a lot of heart — we’ve known that from the beginning and we love that about them. So, it was fun to see that come through today.”
Mason emphasized that his team loves playing matches like the one they did on Saturday.
“They’re a great team,” he said of the Bears. “We’ve got a lot of respect for them, so we’re excited to get one more.”
Since the start of the MIL’s participation in the HHSAA state water polo tournament in 2005, Lahainaluna has claimed nine MIL titles while Baldwin has six, including the last three.
That Bears-Lunas streak will grow to 16 in 2022.
Trailing 13-12 to begin the fourth quarter, the Lunas tied the match for the first time on a long shot by Tara Zamani with 6:21 to play. After the Bears took 15-13 and 16-14 leads, the Lunas caught them at 1616 on a shot into the upperright corner of the net by Zhi Clark with 3:01 remaining.
Maile Cacal’s goal with 1:22 to play gave the Lunas an 18-16 lead.
“Honestly, this is amazing, words cannot explain how hard we worked to earn this win and today really showed — winning by one point especially — how much time and effort we put into this win for the championship of the MIL tournament,” said Cacal, a senior who had four goals and plans to walk on to the Arizona State team in the fall. “Baldwin is really tough, they keep us battling and honestly we don’t know what they’re going to (do), how they do things differently. We just adjust and control what we can.”
Baldwin coach Lauren Shinozuka said the Bears will be ready for today’s game after pointing out that the Lunas just kept coming on Saturday.
“We gotta, we gotta, we’re ready for Monday,” Shinozuka said. “We’ll both represent Maui great at the state tournament.”