Michael Stafford makes a save during PK's for Kalani. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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KANEOHE — It only took a year, but the Kalani boys' soccer team will have another chance at its first league crown after surviving a knock-down, drag-out semifinal against Kapolei Thursday night.

The Falcons (10-0-1), ranked third in the ScoringLive/OC16 Boys Soccer Power Rankings, handed the fourth-ranked Hurricanes (9-1-2) their first loss of the season, 1-0, in a game that was decided by penalty kicks.

Kalani won the penalty-kicks portion of the match by a score of 6-5. Toshiro Kosins, Takahiro Kosins, Marc Teshima, Peter Johnson, Madison Casey and Kota Nakayama converted their kicks and goalkeeper Michael Stafford made one save for the Eastern Division-champion Falcons.

"Honestly, we're not good at finishing," Takahiro Kosins said. "We had a lot of chances, but we're a team that likes to pull through and we always try to make the best of what we've got, so I think our team did well on finishing and well on our PK's, too, and pulled through."

The teams went through eight rounds of penalty kicks before Kapolei's last attempt went over the crossbar, setting off the Falcons' celebration after a marathon match.

"In practice we usually pick 10 shooters and we'll go the first five versus the back five, so we feel confident in them," Kalani coach Michael Ching said. "They work on it very hard. The bad thing is a lot of those guys didn't get to play a lot in the game, so it's always hard because they come in cold, but it's a testament to how good they were."

Kosins said Ching's message to the team after the second scoreless overtime period helped prepare them for the penalty kicks.

"Our coach told us that we should always just be composed and just hit it like practice and even if we miss it's not our fault, because we still have states and we can still work toward states, so even if we lose we'd be fine," Kosins said. "I think that kind of eased the pressure off and helped our players kind of put it into the net."

The Falcons outshot the Hurricanes, 21 to 13, and also held the edge in corner kicks, 13 to 7.

"It's the story of us all year: we always have chances and we can't put it away, but you can't ask for more than to get the chances," Ching said. "It's definitely frustrating, we work on it a ton, but these are boys. I think what we're proud of though is we keep fighting, we keep playing hard, we keep digging. Guys miss but they kept working hard."

Stafford made six saves in goal for Kalani, while Makana Breault had 10 stops for Kapolei, which saw its seven-game winning streak come to an end.

Ching was empathetic toward the Hurricanes in his post-match comments.

"Kapolei is so good, so it went back and forth and it was an exciting game," Ching said. "Basically I feel bad for them because PK's are a coin flip — it doesn't mean we're better than them — I mean we have to have a winner, but they certainly should be proud of themselves."

Kapolei co-head coach Ryan Lau credited the Falcons for forcing the action.

"You could tell by their gameplan that they were trying to get the ball up front early and often, trying to get to the perimeter to get the throw-ins and the corners. They were driving and looking for the set plays. We were looking a little bit more to combine, but their goalie made two good plays diving on the line on our sets," Lau said. "I think it's two good teams, good defensively organized, two good keepers — you know, it's a tough one — and in PK's the keepers did their job for both teams."

It was the eighth consecutive win for the Falcons, who will return to the Oahu Interscholastic Association championship match for the second consecutive year. They lost to Kaiser, 3-2, in last year's tournament final.

"Winning OIA's was definitely a goal this year, because last year we lost in the finals to Kaiser," Kosins said. "This year we don't want to go off island either for states, so we just want to make history and continue on to states."

Awaiting Kalani in Saturday's 7 p.m. final — which will follow the 5 p.m. Division II title game between Kailua and Waipahu — is West-champion Mililani, which defeated Kalaheo in Thursday's late semifinal, 1-0, in double overtime.

MILILANI 1, KALAHEO 0 (2OT): Marc Matas scored the game-winning goal on a header in the ninth minute of the second overtime period to lift the West-champion Trojans (11-1) past the East runner-up Mustangs (8-2-2). Jarad Choquette started the play with a corner kick that Matas flicked into goal.