Lavatai, Farrington rock Kailua

After losing its first two games by a combined 52 points, Farrington needed to hit the reset button quickly.

After a bye week and a couple of wins, the Governors are back in a familiar spot in the OIA Red East.

Senior Sanele Lavatai took his first carry 73 yards to the house and finished with 157 rushing yards and three touchdowns in Farrington’s 31-14 win over Kailua on Saturday at Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium.

Vimoto Fuimaono added 110 yards on the ground and Montana Liana threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to DJ Chaffin for Farrington (2-2 overall), which has won its first two league games for the seventh time in the past eight years.

"We’re still far from where we want to be and it’s still early in the season," Govs coach Randall Okimoto said. "Our guys know what they’re capable of doing, but you can’t forget how to get there."

Farrington still has a major problem with penalties after committing what Okimoto said was "the most penalties we’ve ever had on defense."

The Governors were flagged 23 times in the game, including nine for jumping offsides on defense.

"We made a lot of mistakes, especially at the beginning," linebacker Aaron Kesi said. "We just really wanted it. We really wanted that win."

Kesi had two of Farrington’s nine sacks, while junior Breiden Fehoko sacked Kailua quarterback Noah Auld three times and finished with nine tackles.

Auld hung tough against the Governors defense to finish 23-for-40 for a career-high 263 yards.

He threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Christian-Taylor Scheer and hooked up with Matthew Gaspar on a 24-yard scoring play in the fourth quarter to pull to 28-14.

Sophomore Koolauloa Gaspar led all of Kailua’s receivers with 12 catches for 102 yards.

"We had six people on the injured list this week and when we have a roster of 43 guys and six are out — five are starters — it hurts us a lot," Kailua coach Gary Rosolowich said. "Even with the guys on the field, we have a bunch of sophomores out there, so we’re just battling and trying to do the best and given all the circumstances, I actually thought we did pretty well."

Chaffin finished with five catches for 64 yards to lead Farrington, and Liana finished 10-for-17 for a career-high 206 yards after missing last week’s game.

Liana had never thrown for more than 154 yards in any of his previous 15 starts.

"Receivers caught the ball, tight end caught the ball and we need all these guys later in the season — we’re going to need everybody to step up," Okimoto said.

Lavatai scored touchdowns on his first two carries and finished the game averaging 12 yards per attempt.

As a team, Farrington rushed the ball 29 times for 275 yards.