QB Kaipo carries Campbell past Moanalua

Year 1 with Krenston Kaipo at the wheel is turning out to be quite a thing to see.

The junior southpaw passed for 356 yards and five touchdowns in less than three quarters of action as Campbell overwhelmed Moanalua 51-6 on Saturday night at Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium.

He completed 24 of 41 pass attempts, and his passing yardage total was just 32 yards away from the school mark set by Isaac Hurd in 2013 against Hilo. The Sabers improved to 4-1 in OIA play (4-2 overall), finishing with 493 yards of total offense.

“We really did a better job with penalties,” first-year Campbell coach Darren Johnson said. “We’re happy with that.”

After having games with well over 100 yards in yellow flags, the Sabers had just four penalties for 35 yards, including just one in the first half. When they arrived, the game plan was to take what the defense offered.

“We threw 37 times in the first half? We were’t planning that,” Johnson said. “But Krenston is doing a better job every day, and one of our guys who returned from injury (Christian Quiambao) did a great job, and so did our other receivers.”

Two of Kaipo’s scoring tosses went to Poki‘i Adkins-Kupukaa, who as a sophomore emerged quickly as one of the state’s top pass catchers. He finished with six receptions for 93 yards, but with Moanalua congesting the line of scrimmage — Campbell ran the ball a relatively light 23 times for 140 yards — Kaipo found open teammates in pockets around the field. Vernon Etrata-Daite caught four passes for 92 yards, including a 24-yard TD that gave the Sabers a 6-0 lead.

Johnson was also pleased with the progress of Quiambao, who returned from injury and had his best game with eight catches for 78 yards.

After Kaipo connected with Etrata-Daite and Gabriel Colon-Valentin for first-quarter TD passes, he found Adkins-Kupukaa for scoring strikes of 13 and 37 yards in the second quarter to give the visitors a 25-0 lead at intermission.

The lead swelled to 38-0 after Colon-Valentin hauled in a 32-yard scoring pass and Jacob Covington motored through right tackle for a 20-yard TD run.

Then Moanalua quarterback Nick Au found Javon Monico for a 3-yard pass, and Monico lateraled to Micah Kim, who went the remaining 44 yards down the left sideline untouched on a perfect hook-and-ladder play.

From there, reserves took over, with running backs Viliami Faumui and Joshua Salvido hitting pay dirt.