Kadena senior Dianne Abel became the career goals leader in Pacific girls soccer on Saturday.

The Panthers striker, already the region’s season record holder with 66 in 2005, scored five goals in a 12-0 victory over Oroku, a Japanese team. That performance gave Abel 32 goals this season and 149 overall, three more than her best friend, former Kubasaki striker Erin Foote, who graduated last spring.

“Wow! That’s pretty cool,” Abel said.

She didn’t realize until well after the match that she’d broken Foote’s record.

“My father, coach (Hoa Nguyen) and I talked about it after the match. I thought I needed five or six more goals,” said Abel, who entered the season with 117 goals, needing 29 to surpass Foote. “But that’s awesome.”

Foote returned to the island on Thursday, following completion of her second semester at Winthrop, in Rock Hill, S.C., where she plays soccer on partial scholarship.

“Awesome. Wow. Good for her,” Foote said of Abel’s passing her old record. “She definitely deserves it. It’s kind of heartbreaking but she’s my best friend so it evens out.”

Next fall, Abel is to join Foote at Winthrop.

Abel likely is far from finished adding to her goal total. The Panthers have a few more regular-season matches left, including Wednesday’s showdown with Foote’s Dragons at Kubasaki. Then there’s the Far East Class AA tournament May 15-19, which Kubasaki hosts.

“Nobody is going to reach her,” Foote said. “Nobody’s going to break that record.”

Abel said she’s not interested as much in individual numbers as in helping Kadena achieve a Class AA title three-peat. “It’s whatever it takes for the team to win,” she said.

Foote back on Okinawa as Kubasaki assistantLess than 48 hours after landing on Okinawa, Foote already had joined the team for its Saturday match at Okinawa Christian International, holding a clipboard and passing advice and tips to her former teammates. And she said she’d much rather be on the field than the bench.

“It felt weird when I first sat down,” Foote said. “But it feels good to be around them. I love this team.”

“It was great, just like business as usual,” coach Terry Chumley said of Foote, adding that she will help put the Dragons players through practice drills as well as provide insight during the Class AA tournament. That Foote knows Chumley’s system and expectations is “definitely” a help, she said.

Said Foote: “I’ll just do whatever coach says and whatever she needs me to do.”

Like Chumley, Foote’s old teammates welcomed their former teammate.

“It’s fun to hear her talk about college and stuff,” goalkeeper Alix Mackey said.

“It’s good to have her back,” fullback Sarah Rhodes said. “Just like old times.”

E.J. King boys finally snap 12-match skidE.J. King’s boys soccer team finally put to an end its long losing streak, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, according to coach Henry Barr.

They didn’t win Saturday’s second of two matches but Daniel Goddard’s two goals, one in each half, were enough to ensure the Cobras of a 2-2 tie with Matthew C. Perry. Earlier Saturday, the Samurai downed the Cobras 4-1.

“It felt good,” Barr said, adding that his charges appeared excited and happy after the tie. “When we would lose, we were never down afterward, as long as we knew we had played our hardest, that we went out and did our best. But I’m sure this helped our confidence. … lifted our spirits.”

The Cobras have spent the season battling injuries and ineligibility. Before Saturday’s tie, the team had lost 12 straight matches in the Japan Soccer League, with the Far East Class A tournament starting in a week at Camp Walker, South Korea.

“We’re getting better,” Barr said. “I’m looking forward to Far East. We think we might pull something off there.”

Perry is 2-8-1.

Yokota closes gap on Class AA championYokota didn’t win its match on Saturday. But nine days after falling 5-1 to 2005 Class AA champion Christian Academy In Japan, Yokota coach Tim Pujol adjusted his defense to cut off the Knights’ left offensive front. For Saturday’s rematch at Yokota, he put speedy senior Scott Monahan on CAJ’s freshman scoring sensation Leo Kobayashi.

The result: Yokota lost again, but this time 2-1.

“I was pleased with the way we played,” Pujol said, adding that the changes “really worked for us. Everything we set out to do, we did it. We felt badly about the way the 5-1 loss ended. We had a good feeling about this one. We just had a little trouble finding the net with the chances we created.”

Monahan mostly shackled Kobayashi but the freshman found two chances and made each of them count. Yokota remained off the scoreboard until Tom Gass found the net with one minute remaining.

“They didn’t have as many chances” as in their first meeting at CAJ “but they made them count. We have to do a better job of finding the net next time.”

The Panthers fell to 13-3-1, while the Knights remained unbeaten in six matches.

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