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Acting Roosevelt coach Mark Kaneshiro got a leading-man performance from Landen Kalani on Saturday.
Kalani and Kisei Ikeda scored second-half goals as Roosevelt beat McKinley 2-0 in the OIA Division II boys soccer final at Kaiser.
Roosevelt (8-3-1) earned the OIA’s seeded berth and will receive a first-round bye at the Motiv8 Foundation/HHSAA Boys Division II Soccer Championships, which begins Feb. 9. McKinley (4-8-1) and Waialua will also represent the league in the eight-team tournament.
“The boys continued to work hard, the coaches continued to work hard, they bought into what we were trying to do and hard work paid off,” Kaneshiro said.
The Rough Riders are four-time OIA champions, with their previous titles coming in 1979, 2014 and 2016.
Roosevelt, which controlled play in the first half, broke through on Kalani’s goal at 45:42 from the left side about 18 yards out. Kalani received a pass from Ikeda, cut back towards the middle and uncorked a shot down the middle and over Tigers goalkeeper Alan Cooney.
“It was hard going against the wind because the ball was super light,” Kalani said. “But I knew if I took a hard touch, it would go super far off my leg. I took a slight touch and it was the perfect touch. I had my chance and I just shot it.”
At 66:55, Marco Licona-Hernandes sent a low corner kick into the penalty box, Kalani faked out the McKinley defense with a beautiful dummy and Ikeda found the back of the net from the middle of the box.
“I thought he was going to shoot that actually,” Ikeda said of Kalani. “It went through him, I was able to get a good first touch and place it in.”
Kalani said: “I knew (Ikeda) was behind me and I knew the ball was going by me, so I let it go. He hit that in good.”
Most of the play in the first half took place on the Rough Riders’ offensive end, which was downwind.
Roosevelt, the OIA East’s No. 1 seed, had three shots on goal and five corner kicks in the first half.
The Rough Riders came close to scoring in the fifth minute when Kalani found Leonardo Leon-Licona in front of the net, but Cooney pounced on the ball before a clean shot was taken.
In the 14th, Kalani dribbled down the right side and sent a shot off the side netting.
It started to rain heavily in the 19th minute and it came down intermittently throughout the first 40 minutes.
“We wanted to get to the half at least 0-0. It was hard, we were scrapping it through,” McKinley coach John Mai said.
The wind was so strong in the first half, the ball moved when players placed it on the ground for free kicks and corner kicks.
Kalani almost scored on a breakaway in the 69th, but his shot was blocked by Cooney and cleared by a McKinley defender.
The best scoring opportunity for the Tigers came in the 78th when Noa Akana’s 35-yard free kick was saved by Micaiah Garan, who dived to his left to block the ball. It was the only shot on goal for McKinley, the OIA East’s runner-up.
As far as the Roosevelt coaching situation, Kaneshiro has the title of acting coach and Francisco Pena is the boys program head coach, which includes the JV. The pair has been together for 10 years, according to Kaneshiro, who added he’s the louder one and Pena is more laid-back.
On Dec. 7, Roosevelt defeated McKinley 4-1.
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