Imua Lahainaluna, the football state championship trophy is coming to West Maui for the first time.
With a big boost from juniors Siale Hafoka and Bailey Honda, the senior class of Lahainaluna is the first in four tries to win the Division II state championship game, fending off top-seeded Kapaa 21-14 on Friday night.
Hafoka returned a blocked punt 23 yards for a touchdown and Honda took an interception 55 yards to the end zone as the unseeded Lunas opened a 21-0 lead early in the second quarter and hung on for their first koa trophy.
Lahainaluna (9-4) had reached the championship game three times, losing to then D-II dynasty ‘Iolani each time: 28-21 in 2007; 36-33 in ’12; 31-14 in ’14. Kapaa (8-2) reached the final for the first time last year, losing to Radford 30-16. ‘Iolani moved up in classification the past two seasons and played for the D-I crown on Friday night.
For the Lunas, breaking through validates all of their on-field work over the decades, but co-head coach Garret Tihada was more grateful about his players’ intangibles.
“It’s great, but it’s all those other things, working out at 6 in the morning all offseason, trying to be good people throughout the year, making sacrifices — that’s the main thing. If you win a championship, it means nothing without that,” Tihada said.
This season, MIL champion Lahainaluna was unseeded in the D-II bracket, but eliminated OIA runner-up Waipahu and BIIF champion Konawaena to advance to its fourth state final. Despite losing to Kapaa in preseason 21-0, the Lunas were a different team on Saturday. Their defense limited the KIF champion to one first down in the first half and held on to give co-head coaches Tihada and Bobby Watson the program’s first football crown.
“It’s about hard work and old-fashioned country values,” said Watson, who has been at the school long enough to have coached some of his players’ fathers.
Lahainaluna rushed 42 times for 136 yards, keeping Kapaa’s wide-open, hurry-up offense from picking up any momentum in the first half. After going without a completion last week against Konawaena, the Lunas completed three passes for 41 yards, all by Etuati Storer.
Hafoka, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound athlete, hustled after the blocked punt as it flailed upfield toward the sideline.
“It was amazing to see open field. Pono (Kahae-Ampong) blocked it. I think he had three this year. One of our seniors, Donovan (Defang), made the block for me. It was our senior leaders that led us, and everyone in red. All of Lahaina town was here,” Hafoka said.
He also hauled in a key 39-yard pass moments later to set up a second Lunas TD — 14 quick points early in the second quarter ending a scoreless stalemate.
Honda’s first pick-six of the year ballooned the lead to 21-0 early in the third quarter.
“All I saw was the ball a little bit back outside, a little bit accurate and I took it to the house,” Honda said. “We work every day on that (tip drill).”
The Warriors finished with 252 yards of total offense after the slow start, but had the ball inside the Lahainaluna 30-yard line to start a drive with 5:04 left. They simply couldn’t budge the Lunas’ defense, going four and out, and didn’t get the ball back until the final 13 seconds.
Lahainaluna had a time-of-possession edge of nearly 38 minutes to Kapaa’s 22. Unaloto Pahulu had seven tackles, including three for loss, and forced a fumble to lead the Lunas’ defense. La‘akea Shima also had seven tackles, while Josaiah Sombelon-McEwen, Hoaka Phillips and Hafoka added five tackles each.
Braden Watanabe had a team-high seven tackles for Kapaa. Izaya Valeria (three tackles for loss) added six tackles and Kapena Texeira (three TFL) tallied five.
The first half was relatively quiet until Kahae-Ampong blocked Kurt Napoleon’s punt and Hafoka gathered the ball beyond the line of scrimmage at the 22-yard line, Hafoka eluded a tackler and carried the ball down the right sideline for a touchdown, breaking the scoreless drought.
After a Kapaa three-and-out, the Lunas drove 44 yards in four plays, sparked by a 39-yard play-action bomb from Storer to Hafoka to the 5-yard line. Kiliona Keohuloa scored on a 7-yard reverse, following a caravan of blockers and getting a key block by Dean Miyamoto on the edge. The Lunas led 14-0 with 8:01 to go in the first half.
The Warriors’ best drive of the first half followed, but they stalled at the 17 and Clifton Oliver’s 34-yard field-goal attempt was wide left. They accumulated just one first down in the first half, limiting Leighton Moniz to 9 rushing yards. Teili Fonua, the late-season replacement at QB, was 0-for-1. Moniz finished the game with 50 hard-earned yards on 13 attempts.
The Warriors opened the second half with momentum, getting a 36-yard kick return from Gabe Keener. After a couple of runs by Moniz, Kapaa was near midfield when a pass by Fonua glanced off the fingers of a receiver and into the waiting hands of Honda, who raced 55 yards to paydirt. The Lunas opened a 21-0 lead with 10:54 to play in the third quarter.
The Warriors finally got on the scoreboard during the ensuing series, driving 90 yards in 14 plays. Defensive lineman/running back Kapena Texeira, a 5-11, 250-pound senior, lined up as a wildcat QB and leaned over the goal line for a 1-yard TD. That cut the score to 21-7 with 6:27 left in the third.
Kapaa’s defense stiffened and forced a punt, but momentum dissipated moments later. The Warriors couldn’t get past midfield, and a fake-punt pass by Napoleon sailed incomplete on fourth-and-5.
