Pac-Five beats McKinley

A long night in Kalihi grew even lengthier when Pac-Five’s Makana Bertelmann went down with a leg injury with 1:33 to go in the first quarter, putting a damper on the Wolfpack’s 27-7 season-opening victory over McKinley at Skippa Diaz Stadium.

“That’s the thing that I don’t like about football — those bad injuries. That’s part of the game, but I can never get used to it,” Pac-Five coach Kip Botelho said. “It was tough for our kids to get going after that, but we told them they had to play. Play for Makana now.”

The Wolfpack asserted their ground game early with a pair of rushing touchdowns in the first quarter. Nathan Bek carried the ball three times in the opening drive, his last a 1-yard entry into the end zone. On their first play of the next drive, Kaikea Gonsales broke away with ease for an 81-yard score.

It was smooth sailing for the Wolfpack until Bertelmann fractured his leg after a teammate crashed into him from behind. Bertelmann was visibly in pain as about a dozen staff members tended to him, which led to a stoppage in the action that lasted nearly an hour.

The delay seemed to benefit the Tigers, as their first play from scrimmage after it was a 62-yard pass from Siolei Lopes-Liutolo to Kaiwi Ahina. The duo then switched roles as Ahina fired a 6-yard pass to Lopes-Liutolo for a touchdown.

The connection between Wolfpack quarterback Tyler Fukuroda and his top target AJ Ulufale was a strong one. Ulufale caught all of Fukuroda’s completions in the first half, including one for a touchdown.

Both teams failed to score in an offensively stagnant third quarter after each side committed a myriad of penalties, including a stretch of three turnovers for Pac-Five.

“Like any first game, we made a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball,” Botelho said. “The good thing is that they are correctable and we can get better.”