No. 1 Saint Louis ekes by No. 2 Punahou

Nearly everything went against No. 1 Saint Louis on Friday night.

Except the final score.

Ranked No. 6 in the nation, the Crusaders survived four lost fumbles in the red zone and their first deficit spanning 14 games to hold off No. 2 Punahou 25-19 at Aloha Stadium for their 32nd consecutive win.

Jayden de Laura threw for a career-high 402 yards and two touchdowns to Roman Wilson, who had 11 receptions for a career-high 190 yards.

Koali Nishigaya added two rushing touchdowns on his first two carries of the season as the Crusaders (6-0, 5-0 ILH Open) relied on their stars to hold off a game Buffanblu squad.

“Coach Cal (Lee) told us at halftime that we were in a dogfight. Nobody said it was going to be easy,” Saint Louis linebacker Nick Herbig said. “We had to come out and show our guts. Punahou is a great team, great coaches, they know what they are doing, so we had to come out and fight.”

Matt Sykes added 129 yards on nine grabs, including a miraculous 45-yard catch with a defender draped all over him on Saint Louis’ go-ahead scoring drive late in the fourth quarter.

De Laura went over 400 yards passing when Isaac Silva made a diving catch to put the ball on the Punahou 1-yard line.

On the next play, de Laura handed off to Kaohu Kamakawiwo’ole, who was immediately hit, the ball falling to the ground.

Unlike the previous four fumbles in the red zone, this one was recovered by Saint Louis and Nishigaya scored on the next play for the winning TD with 3:36 remaining.

“With the defense they were running, we knew what we had to do,” Nishigaya said. “We pounded the ball and it worked out.”

Punahou freshman quarterback John-Keawe Sagapolutele, who finished 27-for-43 for 246 yards, led Punahou (6-1, 4-1) into Saint Louis territory on the ensuing drive with a chance to win the game.

He was sacked on third down by Sonny Masaniai to set up a fourth-and-12 and had to leave the game because he was temporarily injured on the play and the clock stopped.

Backup Ian Eveleth had to come in cold off the bench despite Punahou using a timeout, and overthrew a deep ball to Koa Eldredge, who got open inside the 20.

“We had a great comeback. It shows that our team can deal with adversity and we can come back,” Saint Louis linebacker Jordan Botelho said.

Eldredge finished with 14 catches for 113 yards and a touchdown for Punahou, which led from the opening kickoff and held a 16-6 lead at intermission.

A year after its starting quarterback was injured on the first play of the game in the ILH Open Division title game against Saint Louis, Punahou turned the tables.

Running back Vincent Terrell took the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown to put Saint Louis behind in a game for the first time in a span of 52 quarters over 14 games.

The Crusaders scored on just one of their six possessions in the first half and turned the ball over twice on fumbles in the second quarter.

Andrew Canonico had a strip-sack of de Laura, the ball grabbed by D.J. Utu, and Legend Matautia ripped the ball out of the grasp of running back Jason Cruz, with Alaka’i Gilman recovering.

“Turnovers killed us,” de Laura said. “They capitalized on those.”

Punahou got the ball back with 4:21 remaining in the half and methodically drove down the field.

Sagapolutele’s 20-yard pass to Raydan Kiaaina-Caires on third down helped lead to Quinn Maretzki’s 30-yard field goal with no time on the clock to give Punahou a 16-6 halftime advantage.

“We just weren’t executing,” Herbig said. “We need to execute better.”