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While an entire state was in potential disaster panic mode for 38 minutes on Saturday morning, three key NorCal JPS All-Stars teammates were adrift in dreamland. It worked out for the better.
Twelve hours before quarterback Jake Simmons sparked his team to a 21-20 win over the Hawaii East All-Stars in the JPS Paradise Classic title game, he was one of the few who managed to avoid all of the fear and confusion.
Coaches, teammates and families in their hotel saw their phones begin to blare with alerts about a missile that had launched, heading to the islands with bad intentions. Thirty-eight minutes later, authorities revealed that the alert was a mistake.
“To be honest, I slept all the way through it. No one woke me up,” Simmons said. “I would’ve expected a coach to say something, but no.”
Simmons’ teammate from Rancho Cotate (Calif.) High School, Jalen Ward, actually woke up to the noise.
“I thought it was the hotel alarm clock. I was hitting it. It was like an Amber Alert siren,” Ward said. “I looked at my phone. I was like, ‘I’m not here for this.’ ”
Nearly 15 hours later, Simmons, Ward and their teammates could exhale. Simmons was quite Baker Mayfield-ish at quarterback, finding Ward for a TD pass as NorCal pulled out a win on Saturday night at Aloha Stadium.
“That’s the money play right there. I told him before the play,” Ward said.
“Usually when he looks at me, I look at him and we nod before the play, that means it’s go time. We’re about to score,” said Simmons, who passed for 165 yards (12-for-22).
That score tied the game at 14 late in the third quarter.
NorCal running back Demarii Blanks, who also slept through the alert, was wide awake in the fourth period, juking by one defender and plowing through two more East players en route to a 40-yard go-ahead TD.
Hawaii East got a bulldozing 2-yard TD run by Rico Rosario (Waianae) to pull within 21-20 with 4:07 left. But in a game riddled by penalties and player ejections, Rosario drew an unsportsmanlike conduct flag for taking a leap over the baseball dugout wall.
He was disqualified from the game, the ball was moved back to the 18-yard line for the PAT, and without a deep-ball place-kicker, East’s Hail Mary toss was easily batted away in the end zone. The Hawaii squad never got past midfield again.
It was a day nobody will forget.
“It was crazy,” Ward said. “We all met in the lobby. We didn’t know if it was real or not. We turned on the news and there was nothing about it. The sirens didn’t go off in the city.
“I was thinking they’re going to hit Pearl Harbor. If they hit that with a nuke, then we’re all dead.”
Third place
The visitors from American Samoa rallied from a 23-0 deficit, but a two-point PAT pass with 1:07 remaining fell incomplete to preserve a narrow 23-21 win for Hawaii West on Saturday.
American Samoa got a TD run by one of the tournament’s most impressive playmakers, quarterback Tala Sufia, late in the third quarter to get on the scoreboard.
Down 23-7, Sufia came up with a 27-yard TD pass to Aliitoa Langklide and then ran for the two-point conversion to cut the lead to 23-15 with 4:53 remaining.
Hawaii West recovered the onside kick and went three-and-out. American Samoa then drove 78 yards in four plays, getting a 44-yard bomb from Sufia to Pene Fa‘ave. That helped set up a 10-yard strike from Sufia to Eliott Lelei to bring the visitors what would be the final score.
Hawaii West recovered the tricky onside kick and ran out the clock.
The first half was all Hawaii West. Quarterback Braden Amorozo (Waipahu) finished with 92 passing yards and TD passes of 24 and 38 yards to Ryan Chang (Mililani).
A 30-yard interception return by linebacker Toto Mailo (Waianae) opened Hawaii West’s lead to 20-0 before halftime.
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