Punahou's Christopher Espinoza battles for possession with Iolani's Alex Liu in a match played on Jan. 31. The Raiders prevailed 1-0 in the contest. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Punahou's Christopher Espinoza battles for possession with Iolani's Alex Liu in a match played on Jan. 31. The Raiders prevailed 1-0 in the contest. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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The road to its record 20th state title was all about the preparation for the Punahou boys soccer team.

The Buffanblu capped off the year with their 2-1 win over Kaiser in the title game of the Queen's Medical Center/HHSAA Division I State Championships, but the achievement was the result of a season's worth of work and progress.

With a large number of returning players from last season's team — which captured Punahou's first state crown since 2011 — it was once again pegged as the early-season favorite to win it all since back in November.

It wasn't all smooth-sailing, however, as the Buffanblu had a couple of hiccups along the way in the always-rigorous Interscholastic League of Honolulu regular season. They suffered a shocking 1-0 loss to Division-II PAC-5 on Dec. 20 before tying Mid-Pacific, 1-1, on Jan. 7.

After winning its first meeting against Iolani — by a score of 2-0 on Dec. 14 — Punahou tied the Raiders, 2-2, on Jan. 18 and were dealt a narrow loss in their third meeting for the overall ILH championship on Jan. 31.

The Buffanblu held the lead in that game until the 79th minute, when Iolani scored the equalizer and ultimately went on to edge its rival in penalty kicks.

The defeat gave the Raiders the league crown and meant Punahou would have to win four games to defend its state title.

Not a problem.

The Buffanblu did just that, opening with a 2-0 win over Kalani last Monday night before toppling seeded-teams Kealakehe, 3-1, and Kapolei, 1-0, on consecutive nights to reach the final.

Punahou coach David Trifonovitch was especially pleased with the effort of his players from start to finish of Friday's semifinal victory over the top-seeded Hurricanes in double overtime.

"Against Kapolei we were playing hard that whole game, even in the overtime," Trifonovitch said.

The Buffanblu came out with the same strong showing in the first 25 minutes of Monday's title game against Kaiser. Christopher Espinoza had a pair of corner kicks that led to goals by Duncan McKenna — in the seventh minute — and Jason Vandevender — in the 25th.

"They were ready to go and they had talked about it," Trifonovitch said. "We had kind of planned to do that. We always want to come out in the first 15 minutes or so and really kind of establish a rhythm and a dominance and the pressure and all that kind of stuff."

McKenna, who scored in three of Punahou's four state tournament games, said his team's hot start was a result of everything that it got done through earlier in the season.

"I think just all the preparation that we do on and off the field really helped us with our success," said McKenna, who was named the tournament's most outstanding player.

The game was originally scheduled to take place Saturday night, but heavy rains that morning deemed the playing surface at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium unplayable, thus pushing the contest back two days.

"I think that gave us a little time to prepare and rest up," McKenna said. "Obviously coming into the game it didn't feel quite like a state championship, but once we started playing it felt like last year."

Espinoza said after falling short of the ILH crown, the Buffanblu were eager to rebound in the state tournament.

"We felt like we could have won that ILH championship game, but I think it was better that we lost because it gave us extra motivation coming into states because we knew we had the best team in the state and we wanted to come out and prove that," said Espinoza, who was also named to the all-tournament team.