Kailua pounds Castle into the ground, 26-7

Kailua ground-and-pounded its way back into the win column.

The Surfriders’ offense was nowhere to be found in shutout losses to Farrington and Kapolei the past two weeks, but on Friday they rolled up 261 yards on the ground en route to a 26-7 victory at Castle.

Kailua (4-2, 3-2 OIA Red) stayed in position for a possible playoff bye while spoiling the Knights’ rain-soaked homecoming.

“It means everything,” coach Joseph Wong said. “Farrington (a 3-0 loss) was a heartbreaker, and turnovers killed us against Kapolei (a 33-0 defeat). You can’t have that against anybody in our division. All our division foes are tough. You can’t give anybody that extra edge.”

The Surfriders possessed it this time, wearing down the front line of the Knights (3-4, 3-3) for repeated forays into the secondary.

When it wasn’t workhorse running back Samson Rasay (23 carries, 124 yards) doing the damage, quarterback Aaron Mejia took it himself for another 78 yards on the ground. Chauncy Gonsalves-Bell (13-83) helped the Surfriders polish the Knights off in the fourth.

Defensively, Kailua was on point, too. Now it has two big tests coming up, games at Leilehua and Mililani.

“After the two-game losing streak, it’s good to be back on track,” Rasay said.

Kailua needed to wait one more quarter to end its scoreless streak. At last, after a series of rushing plays, Mejia found Gaege Kupahu crossing the end zone for an 8-yard strike.

“It felt good. I don’t know how to explain it,” Rasay said. “Our run game (was working). We were able to run the ball, control the line of scrimmage. The line was gashing their blocks. Last couple games, we couldn’t run the ball.”

Castle failed to record a first down in a first half in which it got off just 13 plays from scrimmage behind quarterback Jaylen Uyemura-Lee. But facing a 20-point third-quarter deficit, the Knights turned to a rotating cast of wildcat quarterbacks to claw their way to precious yardage.

Kawai Naki broke through for an 11-yard keeper score to open the fourth quarter, cutting it to 20-7.

“Kailua did a great job controlling the ball, moving the chains, scoring, eating the clock so we didn’t have much time,” Castle coach John Hao said. “We did a great job on that one series. I was hoping we could come back on another series and catch them off guard with a pass.”

But Kailua’s Bruddah Spencer-Choy Foo came down with a deep ball thrown by Makana Smith with 5:15 left. From there, Gonsalves-Bell ate up the rest of the clock and, for good measure, punched in a 3-yard score as time expired.