It’s a question we throw out there because you just never know. One time you might actually get a straight answer. We did Saturday.

Ask a coach who just won the first semifinal which of the remaining two teams he’d like to play for the upcoming championship, and the answer is almost always something along the lines of this: “I don’t care. We’re just happy to be there.”

But in the afterglow of Kahuku’s 21-0 victory over Campbell on Saturday, Sterling Carvalho made it very clear: Bring on Saint Louis.

“We want the champions,” the third-year head coach said, more adamant with each of the three or four times he was asked.

And that’s what Kahuku will get Thursday, another of its classic finals matchups with the Crusaders that have been common since 1989. Saint Louis took care of business in its semifinal against Mililani, 27-25, in Saturday’s thrilling nightcap at Skippa Diaz Stadium at Farrington High School. Carvalho’s hunger is understandable; in 2019, Saint Louis beat Kahuku 45-6 in the state championship game. The pandemic has made the wait for a rematch longer.  

Whichever opponent it would be, Carvalho knew he had to put a lot of thought into his game plan against the Sabers. 

Although Campbell, which finished 5-4, is a pretty noticeable dropoff from Kamehameha (you know how we feel about the third public school squad being in this four-team open bracket instead of second from the private school league), Carvalho couldn’t take this game lightly.

When the teams met during the regular season, Campbell scored 23 points — the most by anyone against Kahuku all season. Fortunately for Kahuku, it scored 49 and remained undefeated.

Suffice to say, these guys know each other quite well.

“He knows our players,” Carvalho said of Campbell coach Darren Johnson, a former Kahuku all-star and assistant coach. “His son, Kawe, trains our players in the off-season. So he knows the tendencies of our players, the strengths, the weaknesses.”

And Carvalho knows that Johnson knows the way he likes to run his offense, and that one of Kahuku’s points of emphasis would be to control the ball and avoid making big mistakes that could give Campbell opportunities.

“Yes, that’s how we were thinking, (that) they would stack the box (to start the game),” Carvalho said.

That’s why Kahuku started the game with three passes in a row, all short routes to the outside. Two were to Carvalho’s nephew, Kainoa Carvalho, and the third went for 35 yards to the Campbell 20 when Kainoa slipped out of a tackle.

Finally, on the fourth play, the North Shore program known more historically for brawn than finesse ran up the middle for six. Then from the 14, quarterback Jason Mariteragi — who was 8-for-8 passing in the first half — found Kainoa Carvalho on the far right side of the end zone for a touchdown with no one within 10 yards of him.

After Campbell failed to achieve a first down until the second quarter, which had started with Mariteragi keeping for a 3-yard touchdown, it looked like Kahuku could name its score.

The Sabers had other ideas, and for most of the rest of the game defended strongly in its red zone.

“While we were efficient moving the ball, one thing I would have to say I was disappointed was that we didn’t finish our drives,” Carvalho said.

But, as he also noted afterward, it didn’t matter if his team won by just one point, as long as it won. It helped that Kahuku had no turnovers.

His nephew, who is the son of his twin brother and Kahuku assistant coach Stewart, was all over the field. Catching passes, returning punts, running out of the backfield, kicking extra points. Diminutive but dominant, Kainoa’s versatile and spectacular play was reminiscent of the earlier mentioned Kawe Johnson, the state’s 2012 Player of the Year.

Kainoa Carvalho was electrifying even though the Kahuku offense was low-risk by design. There were reasons for playing conservatively, eating up the clock and rotating lots of players on both sides of the ball.

“We need everybody to be ready for next week,” Sterling Carvalho said.

And, because of the compressed schedule caused by the pandemic, the finalists have just four full days to recover from the semifinals to the championship game.

“It’s a short week, and we’re banged up a little,” Carvalho said. “The bottom line is it’s nine (wins) down and one to go. We just need to be 1-0 next week.”

Good thing for Kahuku that it is — as usual — deep at every position.

“We’re lucky to have that luxury,” the coach said.