Time warp or not, the Kahuku Red Raiders are playing like they come from another world.
Kesi Ah-Hoy rushed for 191 yards and four touchdowns, while Harmon Brown ran for 164 yards and two more scores as No. 3 Kahuku overpowered No. 7 Kapolei 56-10 on Saturday night in the quarterfinal round of the OIA Division I football playoffs.
"We’re not even close to where we need to be. We’ll look at the tape and come back to work on Monday," Red Raiders coach Vavae Tata said. "There’s always room for improvement and we haven’t played a complete game yet. My hat’s off to Kapolei. They’re a great team. They do a great job of creating space."
"Tonight, it was an unbelievable performance by Kahuku. I thought it was like a time warp back to the 1950s with this offense," Kapolei coach Darren Hernandez said. "That’s not a slight against this offense. They execute it with lethal precision. There were just too many gaps for us to cover."
The Red Raiders rushed for 431 yards on 48 carries. They went with more traditional sets early, but spent the last three quarters playing smashmouth football out of their hybrid double-tight end, double-fullback set. They did no H-back, pre-snap motion as they had in a 30-0 win over Waianae two weeks ago. This time, it was snap and go for Ah-Hoy at quarterback in his wildcat role.
"We’re slowly perfecting it now," the junior said. "We have unselfish team players. They just want to win the game. Our O-linemen and fullbacks, they’re artists. The credit goes to them. They protect me the best they can and I follow the big red wall."
Kahuku did it with defense, of course. The stingy unit had permitted just 22 points in eight games. Kapolei freshman Taulia Tagovailoa aired the ball out 63 times and completed 36 passes for 356 yards, but he was picked off four times by Kahuku’s crafty secondary. He was sacked just twice, but pressure came from different angles at times.
"I thought we did a great job of protecting Taulia. It’s just turnovers, missed reads and we got run over with the running game," Hernandez said. "They’re the real deal."
Cornerback Kekaula Kaniho got the Red Raiders going with a 72-yard pick-six in the opening minutes. He had two picks in the game, including a leaping, one-handed snag near the sideline to stop a Kapolei drive at the 4-yard line.
"Our coaches gave us a great game plan from day one, and I just watched film a lot on my spare time," Kaniho said. "That slowed the game down for me. We wanted to rally up to the short stuff and stop the big play, and I think we did that."
The visitors stayed close with a 30-yard field goal by Beau Meyer and a 2-yard TD pass from Tagovailoa to running back Kainoa Bardon on fourth down to close the first quarter. That 14-10 score was as close as the ‘Canes got.
In the second quarter, Kahuku was exclusively in their jumbo hybrid set. After nearly getting picked off on the first play from scrimmage, Ah-Hoy threw the ball just one more time, an incompletion.
Instead, he picked his way through creases in the trenches, following his linemen, tight ends and fullbacks for gain after gain in Kahuku’s no-huddle, hurry-up attack.
Before halftime, Ah-Hoy had scored three TDs and Brown broke out of a scrum between the hashmarks for a 75-yard score. Kahuku built the lead to 35-10.
Kapolei had 230 total yards by the break, moving the ball between the 20s, but was able to cross the goal line just once.
