Kailua won its first O'ahu Interscholastic Association girls soccer title yesterday and its players rewarded co-head coach Wil Kimura with an ice bath in appreciation.

Kailua defeated Wai'anae, 3-0, in the OIA White Division Championships at Roosevelt's Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium in a showdown between the East and West champions.

"If you get water thrown on you, you must be doing something right," Kimura said.

Kailua (8-0-0) and Wai'anae (7-2-2) already qualified for the HHSAA Division II state tournament, which will be held Feb. 4 to 7 at the Waipi'o Peninsula Soccer Complex. Third-place Radford (5-3-4), which defeated Nanakuli, 2-1, Friday, also earned a state berth.

"I'm excited. It's once in a lifetime ... well, hopefully not, but it's amazing," said junior forward Ashley Kanoho, who scored a goal yesterday.

Kailua started out strong with a breakaway by Kanoho in the opening minutes. Kanoho would score 10 minutes later on a pass from junior forward Tiffany Nakata, who fed Kanoho on the left side of the 18-yard box. Kanoho outran her defender and drove to the middle of the 6-yard box, where she finished the play on a shot into the left side of the goal.

"I kind of zoned myself in and knew how to take the shot," Kanoho said. "My coach (co-head coach Malu Afong) taught me how to cut and take the pressure off me."

Nakata scored with seven minutes remaining in the first half when she chased down a long, bouncing pass into the 18-yard box and shot the ball over the Wai'anae goalkeeper.

"Our offense has clicked really well this year," Kimura said. "We wanted to get back to our game of going wide and getting some breakaways."

The Seariders opened the second half pressuring the Surfriders, resulting in a scramble in front of the goal that Kailua managed to clear.

"I wish we would have come out in the first half the way we did in the second half," Wai'anae coach Courtney Brant said. "I think they got nervous.

"We've come back before, but once they scored that second goal we got flustered."

Kailua scored its third goal, after a Searider defender popped the ball into the air near the 6-yard box, forcing goalkeeper Leahi Panui to hit the ball out of the air volleyball-kill style. The ball went to junior midfielder Tehani Linkner, who volleyed the ball into the goal in the 50th minute.

Panui came up big when she swatted down a one-on-one shot by freshman forward/midfielder Sierra Kadooka in the 70th minute.