For the second straight day, Hawaii Prep went deep into a match before coming through with a big finish.

For the third consecutive year, Ka Makani capped their season by claiming the Division II girls soccer state championship.

HPA sophomore Jordan Zarate scored on a header in the 75th minute off a corner kick from freshman Emi Higgins and Ka Makani retained the title with a 1-0 win over Kamehameha-Hawaii in the Division II final of The Queen’s Medical Center/HHSAA State Soccer Championships on Saturday at Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex’s main stadium.

“They had a big target on their back all year, we knew that,” HPA coach Stephen Perry said. “We lost some key pieces of the puzzle to graduation last year. It took us a little while to figure out that puzzle, but good group. They work hard.”

Higgins scored in the 73rd minute in HPA’s 1-0 semifinal win over Kauai on Friday and Ka Makani again waited until the late moments before scoring the decisive goal in the first All-Big Island final in the history of the state tournament.

Higgins said the days leading up to the final have “just been a whirlwind.”

“This morning I woke up … I had so many butterflies in my stomach, but then I just kept thinking ‘all right, all right,’ and getting in a good mind-set and it played out exactly how I would have wanted.”

Higgins’ corner kick late in Saturday’s match went just about how she envisioned, lofting it into the middle of the box to find Zarate on the other end.

“It was a perfect corner,” Zarate said. “There was no speed and power behind it, I just had to get my head on it. … I saw it in the air and I just had a feeling.”

Before celebrating another title, Ka Makani had to first withstand a final surge from Kamehameha-Hawaii. The Warriors made a final charge and HPA senior Kaui Taylor was positioned in front of the goal to block a shot with less than two minutes left in the third meeting of the season between the BIIF rivals.

“We had to pull some people back and we had some of our bigger bodies in the box and the ball found them instead of the ball finding the net,” Perry said.

Kamehameha-Hawaii closed the season at 13-5-1 after reaching its first state final since winning the Division II title in 2008.

“The girls played their hearts out tonight,” Kamehameha-Hawaii coach Gene Okamura said. “Our goal was to get to the state final and play at 5 p.m. under the lights here and we did. It’s just we couldn’t finish it through. But it’s OK — this group battled throughout the entire season to get themselves here.”

HPA worked its way back to a fifth straight final and again left Waipio with a trophy to add to its collection in Kamuela.

“The seniors are like my older sisters, so I just would do anything to try to help them get there,” Higgins said. “It just feels so good to have helped them get there and send them off with a win.”