After a jittery first half, Lahainaluna calmed down and played up to its title of defending Division II state champion.
Trailing by a point at the half, the Lunas stormed past Pearl City in the final 24 minutes for a 20-7 season-opening, nonleague football victory Saturday night at the Chargers’ home field. The visitors from Maui did it with their patented option attack with sweeps to go along with keepers up the middle.
“I’m glad we turned it around,” Lahainaluna co-head coach Garret Tihada said. “We just need to always go back to our fundamentals. When that breaks down, we won’t accomplish anything. The first half was a mess, basically. Then once we got back to fundamentals, we looked OK.”
The Chargers grabbed an early 7-0 lead with a 63-yard drive that quarterback Isaiah Asinsin capped with a 1-yard quarterback sneak for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead with 6:20 to go in the opening quarter.
Despite throwing two early interceptions, Lunas quarterback Etuati Storer spearheaded the team’s only scoring drive in the first half. On a fourth-and-4 situation, he picked up 12 yards to move the chains. Storer then found Kawehi Gillcoat and Kai Bookland for short first downs to to set up a 6-yard TD run by Joshua Tihada, the coach’s nephew. A bad snap ended the point-after attempt, so Lahainaluna still trailed 7-6.
The second half was all Lunas. They took the opening kickoff and marched 61 yards to take a 12-7 lead on Elijah Ragudo’s 33-yard touchdown sweep to the left.
“It was frustrating,” Pearl City two-way player Kasey Kikuyama said. “In the first half, we came out strong, but everybody got ahead of themselves. We were leading by one point and thought we had it wrapped up already. We were mentally got off our game. Some were throwing their helmets on the ground and that’s not how we’re supposed to play the game.”
VIDEO REVIEW
Watch Paul Honda’s video of the first game played at Skippa Diaz Stadium between Farrington and Kamehameha here.
The Chargers had a chance to get it back when Burkhardt Ativale jumped on a Lahainaluna fumble at the Lunas’ 28, but the offense stalled and, after a punt and touchback, the visitors quickly went on an 80-yard TD drive to effectively wrap it up. This time, Storer capped it with a 6-yard TD run and Ragudo added the 2-point conversion with a sweep around right end to make it 20-7 with 2:38 left in the third quarter.
“I’ve been watching Lahainaluna run this offense for four or five years and it’s like a well-oiled machine,” Pearl City coach Robin Kami said. “You stop them one time, the next time they do something good. You gotta stop them all four plays, not one or two. When you contain the middle they start to go off tackle. They did a good job of the in and out on us.”
Despite interceptions by the Lunas’ Bailey Honda and Kamalei Watson in the second half, no more points went up on the scoreboard.
“We started off slow, but as long as we got to do what we do best, it made it all better,” Lahainaluna’s Joshua Tihada said. “The trip has been great. We’re coming together as a team and doing our team bonding and doing our best.”
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