Kaiser breaks away from Pearl City to win title

Kaiser’s road to an OIA White regular-season football championship hit an unexpected but short-lived bump Friday night in Pearl City.

After breezing through the rest of the conference, the Cougars found themselves in an ultra-tight defensive struggle with the host Chargers, but eventually prevailed 31-6 by going on a late third-quarter tear in a hard-hitting game.

With the victory, No. 10 Kaiser (7-1, 7-0) clinched the regular-season title and the top seed in the conference playoffs.

“The championship feels good, but I expected to play better,” Cougars coach Rich Miano said. “We hadn’t been in that situation (a close game) in so long. Whatever we did offensively (in the first half), they had something for it. They stacked inside and if we tried to go outside, they prevented us from doing it. Their coaches did a good job of scheming us.”

Pearl City (5-3, 5-2) missed its bid to jump into a first-place tie and had its five-game winning streak broken.

“The adrenaline was flowing,” Chargers coach Robin Kami said. “We played real, real well. We caught them off guard. But we came out kind of sluggish in the second half and they took advantage of a turnover to put points on the board.”

The Cougars led 10-6 at the half, and a steady drizzle greeted both teams after the break. Finally, Kaiser got some breathing room midway through the third quarter.

On a third-and-9 play, the Chargers gave the Cougars an opening, and they took it. Wide receiver Justin Ikei was wide open in the middle of the field and quarterback Kahoalii Karratti hit him in stride for a 44-yard gain.

Two plays later, Destin Moss caught a slant pass from Karratti and bolted into the end zone for an 18-yard touchdown to give Kaiser a 17-6 lead with 4:57 left in the third.

“It was our first real fight,” said Karratti, who completed 14 of 21 passes for 225 yards. “So it was good to come out on top because we had only blowouts before and it showed our character. We had to air it out and the receivers and O-line did a great job.”

The momentum stayed with the Cougars, who immediately responded to Pearl City’s next drive with a first-down interception of quarterback Jordan Taamu by Cougars defensive back Melvin Kahunanui.

And Kaiser didn’t let the opportunity slip away. Two completions from Karratti to Ikei led to an 8-yard touchdown jaunt by Thomas Leong. That made it 24-6 with 3:48 left in the third, but any kind of Pearl City comeback attempt was a huge uphill climb.

Miano said the switch to the passing game worked.

“We tried to power it against them and we were predictable, so (in the second half) we said, ‘Let’s see if they can stop our passing game.’ ”

In the second quarter, the Chargers crept to within 7-6 when Blake Cooper punched in a TD from a yard out, but Pearl City’s attempt for the lead on a 2-point conversion failed with 4:15 to go in the half.

Cooper grabbed passes of 22 and 19 yards in the drive, including one in which he slipped to the ground and still made the catch.

Matt Sai gave the Cougars a 10-6 lead with a 29-yard field goal with 15 ticks to go in the half.

Kaiser’s defense came up big by allowing Pearl City only 13 yards rushing and 119 passing.

Linebacker Isaac Slade-Matautia had two sacks for the Cougars.

Radford 45, Roosevelt 0

Cody Lui-Yuen threw for 359 yards and five touchdowns to lead the Rams in a rout against the Rough Riders.

Lui-Yuen threw all five TD passes in the first half, including a 91-yarder to Absolom Henry, as Radford took a 39-0 lead into the break.

Henry finished with five receptions for 185 yards and two touchdowns.

Nanakuli 34, Kalaheo 14

Chazz Troutman rushed  for 203 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Golden Hawks over the Mustangs.

Nanakuli’s Kale Kanehailua completed seven passes for 31 yards and rushed for one touchdown.