HHSAA Girls Soccer State Championships 2007

My congratulations to Kamehameha-Kapalama! This is a worthy champion. Their speed and skill was impressive and a joy to watch.

Also, to Pac-5, who won a double over time, shootout over Mid-Pacific for the Div II crown. What a game!

A few thoughts I had as I watched almost all of the games in this tournament:

1. This was another well run, fun tournament for all the participants.
2. There is quite a large difference between Div I and Div II. They play at a different speed.
3. As I watched all the Div I teams, I couldn't escape the nagging feeling that some of the best teams were left out of this tournament, specifically Punahou and Iolani. I watch the ILH all season and, without any stats to back me up, I can say that these teams were good enough to not only be in this tournament, they would have been somewhere near the top.

If you have scores of head-to-head matches between Punahou or Iolani and the teams that were in this state championship, please send them to me. I'm especially interested in the pre-season tournaments where there was a lot of league crossover. This topic will be the subject of a future article.

Also, if you have thoughts on the selection process for girls soccer, please email me. I know it is a difficult task to choose the teams fairly, but it seems to me that in girls soccer, at least, a little tweeking is in order.

Thank you.