Fri, Feb 27, 2015 @ Waipio

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Punahou

0

Mililani

1

Final	1st	2nd	OT	2OT	PK	Tot
Punahou (11-3-2)	0	0	-	-	-	0
Mililani (15-1-0)	0	1	-	-	-	1

Jeron Cunningham

Mililani's Jeron Cunningham celebrates after scoring the eventual winning goal against Punahou. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Mililani's Jeron Cunningham celebrates after scoring the eventual winning goal against Punahou. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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WAIPAHU — Jeron Cunningham saw an opportunity and seized it.

Cunningham scored the lone goal of a semifinal match in the Outrigger Resorts/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I Boys Soccer State Championships to lift Mililani past Punahou, 1-0, Friday night.

The second-seeded Trojans (14-1) won their ninth consecutive game before a crowd of about 1,700 fans at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium to move into Saturday's 7 p.m. championship final against Kalani, which beat defending state-champion Iolani, 1-0 in penalty kicks, in the other semifinal.  

"It's everything that the boys have worked hard for," Mililani coach Steve McGehee said. "We've got one more game to play. It feels good right now, but we've got a lot of work to get everyone healthy."

The Trojans will try for their sixth state crown in school history and first since 2012.

"It's our first time back here since my freshman year," said Cunningham, a senior fullback. "Although I wasn't on the team my freshman year, finally being here for the first time feels great and I'm proud of my team for all the work that we've put in this season. We deserve this."

Cunningham scored off a free kick from about 22 yards out in the game's 50th minute. His teammate, Jarad Choquette, drew a foul against a Punahou defender to set-up the attempt.

MJ Matas and Cunningham both stood behind the ball just prior to the shot. Matas faked the initial shot, instead stepping over the ball, before Cunningham fired a right-footed shot just over a wall of Buffanblu players and just inside the right post and past a diving Connor Goo in goal.

"I told (Matas) I had it," Cunningham said. "I knew I was going to put this away. I had full confidence in myself that I would put that away."

McGehee said the set piece and Cunningham's shot has been a work in progress.

"He's been working on that shot all season long and has made a mess of it all season long and he finally got it right," McGehee said. "There's two or three guys that are responsible for taking it and he's one of them and he saw the read and he wanted it and that's what you want: a guy who wants it in that pressure situation."

Cunningham said all that work paid off at the right time.

"We practice it and work on it every single day, so as soon as I got the chance I took it," Cunningham said. "I've had to work on it. Every time I made a mistake, coach has been the one to always correct me and I always try to correct myself."

Punahou coach David Trifonovitch could do little but tip his cap to Cunningham on the goal.

"It was a beautiful set piece and a great shot," Trifonovitch said. "Sometimes those are going to happen and we kind of knew coming into the game that they were being successful on those. We were a little more concerned with the headers and things, so we tried to prepare for that, but that was well done."

The Buffanblu (10-3-2), who finished second behind Iolani in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, held the edge in a number of statistical categories, including shots (15 to 12) and corner kicks (four to one), but couldn't find the back of the net.

"We didn't play our game tonight. We were on fire in Maui, scoring five goals a game just with ease — they played very well — but maybe the whole split of the format, you know you get up for the weekend and then it's hard to get back up for this weekend, but hats off to Mililani. They played well, they did what they had to do and they won the game."

Saturday's championship game is a rematch of the Oahu Interscholastic Association tournament final, which Mililani won in double overtime, 1-0, on Feb. 7.