Being prompt pays.

The Pearl City girls soccer team arrived at Kaiser High School for Wednesday’s night’s OIA playoff game with plenty of time to spare and Castle arrived so late it had only 15 minutes to warm up.

The difference was a 3-0 win for Pearl City. The Chargers (7-0-4) moved on to play top seed Kaiser at Kaiser tonight and clinched a state berth. The Knights (8-3-1) take on Waianae at 7 p.m. at Kailua for a state berth.

Despite the lack of warmup time, Castle pushed the action for the first 20 minutes, but never got a goal. After that, Pearl City turned into the OIA contender it has been in the past.

“About the 24th minute, we started to realize that we were going to be OK,” Pearl City coach Frank Baumholtz III said. “The second half was a totally different team. We weren’t worried if they were going to kick it 60 yards because we could handle it.”

The Chargers scored the only goal of the first half when Cailla Fabro deposited a one-timer into the goal off a pass from Kailee Eli in the 20th minute. Castle had pushed the action before that, but the breakdown was devastating.

“Hand it to them,” Castle coach Millie Dydasco said. “They played really well, they wanted it more than we did and it showed. We were so off-key, so unbalanced, all of our balls were all over the place. (Arriving late) played a part in our passing, but no excuses. Pearl City came prepared.”

The Knights were without forward Angela Johnson, who reinjured her knee in Tuesday’s win over Aiea. Baumholtz believed that hurt Castle, but the way his girls were playing in the second half suggested that Pearl City would have moved on regardless.

“She would have been a difference,” Baumholtz said. “She is much faster than their other two forwards. That’s really too bad because she is really a great player.”

Pearl City iced it in the 58th minute when Parishaan Carter-Amorin, who owned one sideline all night, tripped a little bit on the wet track surrounding the field but found her footing enough to hit Lauren Takai with a throw-in for Pearl City’s second score.

The Knights changed keepers two minutes after the second goal, but Carter-Amorin then served a perfect pass with her right foot in the 62nd minute to Tasha Inong, who beat the new keeper easily

Moanalua 1, Kapolei 0 (3-2 PKs)

With neither team recording a goal in regulation nor in either of the overtime periods, Na Menehune outlasted the Hurricanes 3-2 in penalty kicks. Moanalua advanced to today’s 5:30 p.m. semifinal vs. Mililani, which defeated Kahuku 3-0, at Kaiser. Kapolei drops into a 5:30 p.m. fifth-place bracket semifinal at Kailua against Kahuku.

Kaiser 4, Waianae 1

Cori Papapa, Courtney Okazaki, Kai Hasegawa and Skye Shodahl found the back of the net to propel the Cougars past the Seariders. Sonest Furtado provided the lone goal for Waianae.

CORRECTION: Cailla Fabro scored the only goal of the first half for Pearl City. An earlier version of this story and the story in the print edition had a different name.