By Reagan Paz
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MHS got to take home a third soccer title this year when the varsity boys were crowned Oahu Interscholastic Association (OIA) champions on Jan. 25 after their 2-0 win against the Kapolei High School Hurricanes. This marks their second consecutive title and 14th overall win.
“Being a part of a championship is the greatest feeling in sports, knowing that it took each guy on our team to push through and together we left our mark on history,” Senior Elan Yogi expressed. Junior Christopher Galang added, “It feels really great since it’s my first year being here. It feels pretty good.”
Within the entire season, Kapolei was the only team the boys didn’t beat. When MHS played them on Dec. 14 during the regular season, they tied with 0-0. “Even though we tied it felt as if we lost; it was just such a bitter taste. We felt like we still had more to give,” said Yogi, continuing, “In the end it just felt good to prove everyone wrong. To show that we wanted it more, that we had more heart.”
As no reward comes easy, the coaching staff and players are proud of their accomplishment. “The work that goes in, the work that our team does, the preparation for the OIA tournament is significant. Some people might think that, ‘Oh, Mililani, it’s easy for them,’ but it’s not easy, it’s never easy. There’s a lot of hard work that went into it,” head coach Jeff Yamamoto stated. The boys practiced five days a week for almost three hours each day.
Each player on the team brought a sense of individuality that made them function better as a whole. “It has a lot of depth and variety, not all players play the same. We each have individual styles that make up the whole team,” said Galang, adding, “Some play for individual, more dribbling, the finishing type but some, like me, like to pass and look for open areas.”
However, this year’s team was different in the sense that all of the players were on the same level. “We had no real superstars,” Yogi explained, “We have very important people to our team but we all function better as a unit than relying on a superstar. We each understand that and play for each other.”
Having the turf this year posed new challenges for the team when they played in the tournament. “The field condition was probably the biggest challenge,” said Yamamoto, “We’ve never played on a field (with those conditions) before, it doesn’t really fit in the way we play soccer so they had to adjust very quickly.”
The boys will enter the state tournament at their first game tonight with high hopes to win the Hawaii High School Athletic Association title like last year.
