Starcia Deponte led Waiakea with 13 goals last season, but oh what the Warriors girls soccer team would have done for just one more. ADVERTISING Starcia Deponte led Waiakea with 13 goals last season, but oh what the Warriors girls
Starcia Deponte led Waiakea with 13 goals last season, but oh what the Warriors girls soccer team would have done for just one more.
In overtime against Konawaena in the 2015 BIIF Division I championship game, Deponte accomplished the hard part when she chipped a shot over standout goalkeeper Taiana Tolleson. But her ball, a potential 14th goal that would have given Waiakea its first league title, caromed harmlessly off the post.
In the shootout, Waiakea’s Tori Teanio was thinking about what she was going to do with her penalty kick, but she never got a chance. Instead, she and rest of the Warriors watched the Wildcats celebrate a threepeat.
“That was definitely the first time we felt pressure. For me; for all us,” Teanio said. “We just take it as a learning experience. We kind of use that as motivation to practice even harder.”
Said Deponte: “I learned anything can happen and that I just can’t give up.”
After reaching the HHSAA tournament for the first time in five seasons, Waiakea graduated seven starters, including BIIF Division I Player of the Year Sabrina Scott. The loss of leadership and skill level prompted coach Jason Nakamura to term this season as a rebuilding year.
The prospects of going through growing pains might not be what a senior wants to hear entering her final season, but Cierra Toledo-Muragin doesn’t disagree.
“Well, it kind of is a rebuilding year,” she said. “Will be switching and rotating a lot with our lineup this year.
“We have a really young team this year. We only have four seniors.”
The quartet of Kadara Marshall, Deponte, Teanio and Toledo-Muragin, however, provide a solid foundation from which to build.
DePonte and Teanio each made first-team BIIF last season and will focus on opposite ends of the field.
Paired with sophomore Kia Serrao, DePonte returns to striker and she doesn’t foresee a decline in her goal production or the Warriors’ ultimate team goal.
“I’m trying to beat 13 (goals),” she said. “I feel like we can do it again because the team will get that bond back and make plays.”
Teanio and Marshall steer the back line as Waiakea breaks in a new goalkeeper.
“I have the same goal as last year; to try and make thinks easier for my keeper and not let anyone down,” Teanio said.
Beyond his four seniors, Nakamura credits assistant Sage Van Kralingen with developing Waiakea’s younger players.
Sophomore Emma Reynolds is being asked to bolster the back line, and former Honokaa Dragon Evyn Prine, a junior, will try to help Waiakea control the middle of the field along with Toledo-Muragin. Junior Kaylee Valentino-Fergerstrom is tasked with stepping up on the wing.
“We’re grooming the girls for a lot of different positions,” Nakamura said. “Hopefully, the leadership will come from the four girls returning.”
While he calls it a rebuilding year, it should be noted that the coaches of the other perennial playoff contenders in Division I – Konawaena, Hilo and Kealakehe – shared a similar sentiment about their teams this preseason.
The Warriors finished with two victories and two draws over the weekend at a preseason tournament on Oahu as they prepare to face Konawaena on their home turf Saturday in the season-opener.
The Wildcats have won the past two BIIF finals in penalty kicks, but Toledo-Muragin doesn’t necessarily think Waiakea has to get better at shootouts.
“I think we learned that we can’t let it get to that point,” she said.
DePonte, among others, is on the case.
