Now THAT was a football game.
In a sometimes light, sometimes heavy steady drizzle Friday night, No. 1 Kahuku made the big plays when it counted to defeat No. 3 Mililani 21-14 in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Open Division football championship game at Leilehua’s Hugh Yoshida Stadium.
It was a slugfest all the way until the final minute, when Kahuku finished off its rally from a 14-point deficit.
And the final difference boiled down to three plays.
Linebacker Liona Lefau, left, and cornerback Chansen Garcia were part of the Kahuku defense that held Mililani to 211 yards. The Red Raiders’ offense, in a steady rain, only picked up 236 yards.
>> 1. With the score tied 14-all in the fourth quarter, a Kahuku punt bounced off the shoulder of a player on the Mililani punt return team — a live-ball fumble. The Red Raiders’ Kingsley Ah You pounced on it, leading to the decisive touchdown.
>> 2. With that same 14-14 score, prized Division I FBS college recruit Liona Lefau of the Red Raiders took a pass from Waika Crawford and dragged three defenders with him for about 10 yards into the end zone. That 26-yard catch-and-run touchdown made it 21-14 with 7:35 to go.
>> 3. A 23-yard completion from Mililani’s Emana Tarape to Kapono Hookano-Sallas looked like it was going to give the Trojans a first down at the Kahuku 30 in crunch time. Instead, before Hookano-Sallas went down, Red Raiders defensive end Leonard Ah You stripped him of the ball, which flew into the hands of teammate Brock Fonoimoana. Only 1:11 remained and Kahuku was able to take to victory formation and run out the clock.
The winning touchdown was on the “Summer Special” play, which the Red Raiders (8-0) have been working on relentlessly.
“Yeah, we practice it a lot,” Kahuku coach Sterling Carvalho said. “We’ve been practicing it for weeks. It’s named after Liona’s mom’s — Summer. (On the play), he kind of gets lost (in a crowd) and just pops up. And it worked.”
Lefau was brimming with confidence on the play itself and when he gave his assessment of the winning touchdown.
“It’s pretty simple,” he said about the trio of defenders on his back. “I wanted it more. It’s that simple.”
Asked if he knew how many tacklers were on him, Lefau said, “I don’t know, but I didn’t care if all 11 were on me.”
Despite that early 14-point deficit, the Red Raiders didn’t panic.
“We never lost faith throughout the game,” cornerback Chansen Garcia said. “We just went out there as a team and we just encouraged each other and got the dub. Mililani gave us a fight, but we played better as a team. We trusted our teammates.”
Added coach Carvalho: “We played relentless. And we never stopped believing. We knew we could win this game and that’s what brought us home tonight. They (the Trojans) gave us everything. And under these conditions, we just had to persevere and that’s what we did. We stayed together.”
With two interceptions early, Mililani (5-2) built a quick 14-0 lead. Joshua Foster’s pick of Red Raiders starter Jason Mariteragi led to Makanalea Meyer’s 2-yard TD run. Then, Gavin Hunter returned a pick of Kahuku backup Crawford and returned it 45 yards for that double-digit lead just 4:28 into the game.
It was the sneaky Kainoa Carvalho — the coach’s nephew who had eight receptions for 103 yards — that got Kahuku on the board, breaking free for a 46-yard catch-and-run TD from Crawford to cut the deficit to 14-7 at the half.
Then, after taking the second half kick, the Red Raiders drove 67 yards for the 14-all tie, finishing it off on Clyde Taualapapa’s 2-yard TD run.
“It was a really tough game,” said Mililani coach Rod York, whose team lost a 55-20 encounter to Kahuku during the regular season. “We played with a lot of heart. You’ve got to credit Kahuku, though. They were down by 14 and we didn’t take advantage of that. We killed ourselves with penalties and couldn’t get any drives going.”
Hunter, the Mililani cornerback, had a look of disbelief on his face after the loss.
“We’ll come back on Monday and put the work in,” he said. “Oh sure, I’m proud of these guys, my brothers. We would definitely like to play them again.”
The Red Raiders and Trojans will pay in the semifinals of the state Open Division tournament next Friday at Farrington High School’s Skippa Diaz Stadium. Seedings are due out this week, but the likely scenario is that Mililani will take on No. 2 Saint Louis (5-3), the ILH champion. Kahuku’s likely opponent is the winner of Saturday night’s No. 5 Campbell (4-3) vs. No. 8 Waianae (3-4) game to be played at the Waipahu High field at 6:30 p.m.
—–
RELATED CONTENT: Bedrock’s Friday Hawaii High School Football Scoreboard; All 5 Scores Are In
—–
