MILILANI — The west side is indeed the best side. 

Chevylen-Brooke Beebe-Lee caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from Kawena-Lynn Kaluna in overtime to help Waianae walk off with a 31-25 win over previously-undefeated Moanalua in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I girls flag football championship game on Tuesday. 

The Seariders (11-0-2) rallied from a 13-point deficit with less than three minutes to play in regulation to topple the defending champion Na Menehune (12-1) before a crowd of about 500 fans on a calm evening at John Kauinana Stadium. 

Waianae scored the final 19 points of the game to secure the league's seeded berth in next week's Hawaii Dental Service/HHSAA State Championships, which comes with a first-round bye in the 12-team field. 

"This is so huge for Waianae," Seariders coach Kenneth Joseph said of the OIA crown.

Joseph's squad went from a 9-4 record a year ago to an unbeaten run thus far in 2026. Waianae will take a six-game winning streak into the state tournament. 

"I no more enough words to explain how big this is for our community and our school and all our people out there. This is Waianae football, what you seen tonight: the resilience to go ahead and finish strong and pull off the win," Joseph said. 

The Seariders needed to be resilient to erase a two-touchdown deficit with minutes to spare. 

Moanalua seemingly had all of the momentum after three quarters. Four plays after she intercepted Kaluna, Jodie Keo hauled in a 16-yard touchdown pass — her third of the game — to stretch Na Menehune's lead to 25-12 with 3:06 left in the third quarter. 

Waianae went three-and-out on its ensuing drive, but got a key stop from its defense when Moanalua turned it over on downs despite having second-and-goal from the 7-yard line. 

The Seariders cashed in on the stop with a seven-play, 73-yard drive that culminated with a 13-yard scoring strike from Kaluna to Shyzelle Baron-Riveira. The touchdown, which cut it to 25-18 with 2:18 remaining in the fourth quarter, came three plays after Kaluna scrambled for a 24-yard pick up to move the chains on fourth-and-12. 

Moanalua was forced to punt on its next possession and Waianae got the ball back with 1:32 remaining. On the very next play, Kaluna found Makayla Gaston on a short pass in the right flat. Gaston turned the corner, tight-roped the right sideline and turned it into a 59-yard touchdown. That score pulled the Seariders to within a point with 1:19 to play. Kaluna successfully scrambled into the end zone on the ensuing one-point conversion to even the score at 25. 

However, Kaluna collided with at least one Na Menehune defender just as she crossed the plane of the goal line and was down on the turf for several minutes while she was tended to by athletic trainers. Eventually, Kaluna was able to walk off the field on her own power. 

Each team got a possession before the end of regulation, but neither was able to turn it into points and the game went into overtime. 

While Moanalua sent out four captains for the coin toss that preceded the overtime period, Waianae sent a single player: Kaluna. 

"That was a statement. She's a leader by that offense and she came tonight to play and I seen it in her eyes," Joseph said. 

Waianae won the coin toss and elected to put its defense on the field to start the extra period. Pass rusher Cadence Lau sacked Moanalua quarterback Breidi-Ann Higa on first and second down to put the Menes behind the chains. An attempted lateral from Higa to Zaira Sugui on third down fell to the turf and resulted in an eight-yard loss. Higa's Hail Mary attempt on fourth-and-goal from a yard beyond midfield was batted down by Seariders' defensive back Madison Rodrigues. 

"Even though they had some big scores, we had to stay up and just push through. Cadence getting those sacks helped so much because it just gave us momentum as a defense and we just turned on some type of switch and came back stronger than we normally would come back to," said Rodrigues, who recorded four pass break-ups in the win, all of them coming after halftime. 

After it had scored touchdowns to cap four straight possessions to turn a 6-0 deficit into a 25-12 lead, Moanalua's final three drives, including overtime, resulted in two turnovers on downs and one punt. Joseph credited his defense for responding after getting punched in the proverbial mouth. 

"We knew coming into this game that we had to stop that offense and we just talked to the girls that it's about assignment football — everybody do their job and we should be fine — and yeah, hats off to the defense. We knew that that's what wins championships and that's what we needed and they did a great job," Joseph said. 

Lau tallied a half-dozen sacks, three in each half, to slow down the Menes' high-powered offense, which came into the game averaging better than 51 points per game. 

"Defense truly wins championships and I mean, our defense held it down against a team that won champs last year," Beebe-Lee said. "We were definitely the underdogs and our defense, we couldn't have won this without our defense and that's true."

After Rodrigues batted away Higa's pass on fourth down, Waianae got its turn on offense in the extra stanza. Kaluna threw a six-yard pass to Baron-Rivieira on first down to make it second-and-goal from the 14. On second down, Kaluna fended off the oncoming pass rush before she dumped off a short pass to Beebe-Lee, who spun away from a few defenders on her way to the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. 

"The snap was perfect and I just saw my quarterback in trouble so I stayed and I helped her out and I made it for her," said Beebe-Lee, a senior center.

It was her only catch of the game and just her 17th on the year. Beebe-Lee's last reception prior to Tuesday came nearly three weeks prior. What makes her walk-off touchdown grab even more remarkable is the fact that Beebe-Lee suffered a subluxation of her right shoulder three snaps into the contest. 

"My shoulder popped out — I was on the ground — so I was kind of pushing through it all game, after like tons of biofreeze," Beebe-Lee said.

Joseph couldn't help but grin ear to ear when speaking of Beebe-Lee and her late-game heroics. 

"I just told her to be patient and that her time would come and she's ready at any time and when the quarterback needs her the most, she hits her and that was a big clutch play for us," Joseph said. 

Moanalua had an effective pass rush of its own as Jailyn Smith totaled four sacks of Kaluna, including three in the second half. 

Na Menehune twice erased a six-point first-half deficit. Keo pulled down a 31-yard TD pass from Higa early in the second quarter to tie it at 6. Higa scored on a two-yard TD run on the final play of the first half to knot it at 12 at the intermission. 

Keo got behind the defense on a 52-yard TD pass from Higa to give Moanalua its first lead with 7:14 left in the third quarter. Keo, the state's leading receiver with 1,156 yards on 55 receptions, including 30 touchdowns, finished with nine catches for 174 yards and three TDs. 

"It was pretty difficult because it was a roller coaster of a game, but we kept our heads up, we kept our team together and the more we kept our team together, the momentum just kept going and we started believing in ourselves more, but catching that game-winning touchdown meant a lot because I don't normally get much throughout the season because I'm a center, so I have to be selfless and that comes with resilience and everything else that my coach taught me and we just laid it out and left everything out here for our team and for our Waianae community," Beebe-Lee said. 

Kaluna finished 22-of-35 passing for a career-best 308 yards. She threw five touchdown passes — including scoring strikes of 9 and 5 yards in the first half to Angel Medeiros and Baron-Riveira, respectively — against two interceptions. 

"I'm proud of her because she's grown a lot as a player and she really pushed through it," Beebe-Lee said of Kaluna, a sophomore quarterback and second-year starter. "The old her would have gave up and she would have shut down, but I'm proud of her because she didn't give up on her team; She didn't let none of us down."

Baron-Riveira, one of seven Seariders to record at least one reception, caught 11 passes for 92 yards and two touchdowns. 

Gaston and Medeiros each came up with an interception for the defense, which held Moanalua to 0 of 4 on third downs and 0 of 3 on fourth downs after halftime. 

Na Menehune finished 4 of 10 on third downs and 1 of 5 on fourth downs. 

Joseph lauded the grit put forth by his team in the face of adversity Tuesday night. 

"That was something that we worked on from day one. One of the things the girls struggled with last year was the ability to stay in it and stay resilient and trust yourself and that you're good enough and I instilled that from day one with them and they definitely displayed that and they never gave up; They kept fighting to the end," Joseph said. 

Higa was 15-of-23 passing for 197 yards by halftime, but completed only 10 of her 24 passes for 165 yards in the final two quarters. 

Moanalua entered Tuesday's title game having allowed just 58 total points through its first 12 games — an average of just 4.8 points per game — including six shutouts. The most points the Menes had surrendered in a single game prior to Tuesday was 13 (twice) in wins over Kaiser and Mililani. 

"It feels nice and I'm just so glad we got to do this for our school, our community and our coaches," Rodrigues said. 

Moanalua will host a play-in game on Monday, while Waianae will open play in the state tournament in Thursday's quarterfinals.