Boil it all down and Friday night’s highly anticipated matchup was all about Kahuku’s offensive line against Waianae’s defensive front.

For nearly three quarters, those units engaged in suspenseful combat, but as the game got closer to the fourth quarter the top-ranked Red Raiders’ hogs up front made their conquest in what turned out to be a 28-0 victory over the fourth-ranked Seariders and their aggressive defensive bunch.

It was Kahuku’s 16th win in a row over their Oahu Interscholastic Association rivals, and it was also Vavae Tata’s 16th victory without a loss since being named as the Red Raiders’ head coach to start the state championship 2015 campaign.

“I always told the O-linemen that the game is up front and the only way we can win this game is up front,” Kahuku center Vili Fisiiahi said. “Without the O-line, there is no game. It’s just a 7-on-7 game the whole time. We push each other every day and our mentality is we have to go 1-0 every week and we have to finish every play.”

The Red Raiders’ first drive of the second half that took up a large chunk of the third quarter virtually locked up the contest. They rammed and pounded and smashed it up the middle, tossed in a few Sol-Jay Maiava passes, and then gave it to halfback Elvis Vakapuna, who followed fullback Steven Lombard around left end for a 10-yard touchdown and a 14-0 lead. It was Vakapuna’s second TD of the night and — with the mighty, shutdown Kahuku defense taking care of business — Waianae was down for the count with 50 seconds to go in the third.

“It just shows how we took them for granted,” said Waianae linebacker Jaylen Gonzales, one of the team’s standouts all night long. “I know we got big-headed these past three weeks. They really humbled us and it gives us more drive to beat them next time.”

Earlier, two questionable decisions by Waianae (3-1, 2-1 OIA Blue) allowed Kahuku (3-0, 3-0) to break a scoreless tie. The first was a play call. Facing fourth-and-11 from their own 46, instead of punting, Waianae’s Jorell Pontes-Borge faked it and tried to run around the end against a stacked Red Raiders defense. Kekaula Kaniho sacked him for a 5-yard loss with 5:45 left in the half.

“We tried what we tried and it didn’t work,” Seariders coach Walter Young said about the fake punt in his own end with a 0-0 score against the defending D-I state champions.

The second decision came with the Red Raiders driving. On a third-and-4, Vakapuna charged up the middle in the wildcat offense, and for the first time all night, a Kahuku ballcarrier found room outside. On this occasion, Waianae outside linebacker Josiah Viliamu, instead of containment, pinched inside toward the usual pile, allowing Vakapuna to get into the corner of the end zone on the right side for a 10-yard touchdown with 40 ticks to go in the first quarter.

With the game all but in hand, Kahuku finished the night strong with Harmon Brown’s 11-yard TD run and another touchdown made possible by a super-charged play from safety Kesi Ah-Hoy. Ah-Hoy blitzed and batted the ball out of Waianae quarterback Jaren Ulu’s hands at the Seariders 10. The ball bounced into the end zone and Sioeli Naupoto recovered for the final TD.

“We did some good things, but we’re not close to where we need to be,” Kahuku’s Tata said. “If we play like we’re capable of playing, it should have been a different outcome.”

Defenses ruled most of the first half. The Seariders’ Dalton Rajkowski blocked a 37-yard field-goal attempt by the Red Raiders’ Stokes Nihipali-Botelho. For Kahuku, Kaniho came up with an interception of Ulu.

“Football is four quarters, so we gotta work on that and gotta get in better shape,” Waianae’s Young said. “My kids played their hearts out, though. My boys battled all the way to the end and that’s all I can ask of them. Kahuku played a good game. We know what we’ve got to work on. We’ll figure it out.”