Punahou senior forward Dominic Gusman was a runaway winner for Honolulu Star-Advertiser boys soccer Player of the Year honors in voting by a panel of coaches and media.
His coach for the Division I state champion Buffanblu, David Trifonovitch, earned Coach of the Year honors by a slim margin over two others.
Gusman led his team in goals with 13 and was second in assists with nine.
“Dominic was a threat every time he had the ball,” Trifonovitch said. “He drew double coverage most of the time and was able to help find his teammates to score goals. He was Punahou’s leading scorer on a team where all players were able to score goals.”
Gusman, Mililani senior midfielder Liam McGehee and Kapolei forward Tommy Mascaro-Keahi (25 goals) are repeat selections to the newspaper’s Stellar Eleven.
“(Mascaro-Keahi) is probably the best forward in the state,” Trifonovitch said about the senior leader for the OIA champion Hurricanes. “He scored a ton of goals, but he wasn’t able to score goals in the tournament when needed.”
Four other Punahou players made the first team — senior midfielders Johnnie Dodge (five goals, four assists) and Jacob Moore (six goals, 10 assists), senior defender Treyden Buder-Nakasone, and sophomore goalkeeper Cade Matsumoto.
Dodge scored the game-winner in a 3-2 victory over Mililani in the D-I state title game.
“Johnnie was the catalyst for our team, connecting offense with defense,” Trifonovitch said. “He had assists and many defensive plays to stop attacks in the state tournament and in my opinion was the best player in the tournament. And Treyden made up the core of our defense.”
Dodge was a second-team pick a year ago, as was another first-team selection this year — Mililani senior attacking midfielder Jvon Cunningham (13 goals).
Two seniors from state semifinalist Waiakea — midfielder John Grover and forward Kai Biegler — were also chosen for the Stellar Eleven. Both had outstanding state tournaments.
“(Biegler) is a big target up front who has composure to score goals,” Trifonovitch said. “And he never gave up when his team was down.”
Both Grover (13 goals) and Biegler (eight goals) scored goals in all three state tourney games the Warriors played. Grover, Mascaro-Keahi and Dodge were the only players aside from Gusman to receive more than one Player of the Year vote.
Nine of the first-teamers are seniors. The only junior is Kalani midfielder Travis Brubaker, whom Trifonovitch called “crafty and able to create dangerous situations all by himself.”
Two contenders for Coach of Year honors barely missed out — Kalaheo’s John Nakagawa, who took the Mustangs from Division II last year to the D-I semifinals this year, and Mililani’s Steve McGehee, whose fifth-place OIA Trojans got all the way to the state final led, in part, by son Liam (12 goals), the team’s catalyst and distributor.
King Kekaulike coach Tye Perdido summed up why Trifonovitch won out in voting: “Great program and style of play.”
Buder-Nakasone is the first team’s only defender, but the second team has six from the back row, including senior Adam Ferguson of Nakagawa’s upstart Mustangs squad.
Mililani senior Nicholas Gaston came close to beating out Matsumoto as first-team goaltender and is a solid second-team pick.
Of the 22 first- and second-team selections, there are nine midfielders, seven defenders, four forwards and two goalkeepers. In addition, nine are from the OIA, seven from the ILH, four from the BIIF and two from the KIF.
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