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Victory pushes Kahuku into top 10 in U.S. football rankings

JONATHAN CHEN / JCHEN@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Kahuku’s defense celebrated a takeaway during its upset of St. John Bosco (Calif.) on Saturday at Carleton E. Weimer Field.

JONATHAN CHEN / JCHEN@STARADVERTISER.COM

Kahuku’s defense celebrated a takeaway during its upset of St. John Bosco (Calif.) on Saturday at Carleton E. Weimer Field.

After scoring what MaxPreps described as “the biggest upset of the high school football season” on Saturday, the Kahuku Red Raiders jumped to No. 9 in the nation in this week’s MaxPreps Top 25 released today.

Kahuku (5-1) defeated defending national champion St. John Bosco 30-23 on Tuli Tagovailoa-Amosa’s 18-yard touchdown run with 23 seconds remaining to shock the prep football world Saturday night at Carleton E. Weimer Field.

The Braves (4-1), who were ranked No. 3 in the country, dropped to No. 10 after suffering their first loss to an out-of-state school since 2017.

The other high school football ranking the Star-Advertiser recognizes, the USA Today Super 25, comes out on Tuesday.

Kahuku has never been ranked in the top 10 nationally. The last Hawaii high school to receive that high of a national ranking was Saint Louis in 2019, which was ranked No. 7 by MaxPreps before losing to St. Thomas Aquinas (Fla.) in the GEICO Bowl Series in Nevada to end a 38-game winning streak.

Kahuku, which lost to St. John Bosco 34-7 in California last season, has won 26 consecutive games against Hawaii opponents since losing to that 2019 Saint Louis team in the state championship.

The Red Raiders’ lone loss of the season was 55-8 to national No. 1 Mater Dei earlier this month in California.

Kahuku’s next game is Saturday against Nanakuli, which jumped from Division II to Division I this season.

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