Kauai presents tough challenge for Pearl City

When an Oahu team goes to a neighbor island for a state tournament football game, the opponent is usually a great unknown.

That’s not the case this year for Pearl City, which plays Kauai in the Division II first round of the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA State Championships at 2 p.m. today on the Garden Island at Vidinha Stadium.

Chargers coach Robin Kami got a glimpse of the undefeated Red Raiders via a tape swap with Kauai coach Tommy Cox. Both men are in their first years leading the varsity.

"They’re 8-0 (conference and postseason) for a reason," Kami said. "They’re real good. They’ve got a big O-line and they’re real fast and real stingy defensively. I don’t think anybody has scored more than two touchdowns on them."

A team from Cottage Grove, Ore., scored three TDs on the Red Raiders in a 41-21 loss in the preseason, but the highest point total scored on Kauai aside from that was in a 35-13 win over Waimea.

There is no question that Kauai High (6-0 KIF) is battle-tested. Since there are only three teams on the island, the contenders play each other three times. And the race for the title was razor close, with the Red Raiders defeating Kapaa by scores of 6-3, 7-6 and 6-3.

Place-kicker Pono Bukoski was the difference in two of those three contests, with a winning field goal and a winning extra point. In one of the 6-3 wins, he missed an extra point.

Bukoski "doesn’t get off the field," according to Cox. "He’s an outside ‘backer, a slot receiver. He’s the only guy we’ve got going both ways."

The defense rallies around middle linebacker James Bukoski and free safety Kaiea Iwasaki. Offensively, the team is led by running back Reggie McFadden, receiver Kanoa Iwasaki and quarterback Kelson Andrade, who runs the spread option.

"And Kalawaia Judd is a big-time receiver for us," Cox said.

Kami knows not to take the Red Raiders lightly just because they’re a neighbor island team.

"We don’t want to come back to Oahu like many teams come back after going to Kauai for a state game — sad," Kami said.

The three KIF teams are 9-15 combined (Kauai 5-9, Waimea 3-5, Kapaa 1-1) in all state games since the tournament started in 1999, and that includes Waimea’s 3-4 record in Division I before the D-II portion started in 2003. But a more eye-opening number is the KIF’s 9-4 record in state-tourney home games.

Kami believes his Chargers are the underdogs and he says they like it that way.

"I told the kids that we’re lucky we have one more game (after the OIA D-II title-game loss to Kaiser), that many teams are not playing now and we should take advantage of the situation and do the best you can with this opportunity," he said.