This was a strange game — but a special one — from beginning to end for the now three-time champs.

Who recovers an onside kick to start the game and set up the first score? Kahuku does.

Who returns a punt 86 yards to retake the lead with 2:59 left, and then wrestles away a pooch kick to steal the final possession? Kahuku does.

Of course, there was a whole lot in between — like Va’aimalae Fonoti’s 116 yards rushing, and everyone stepping up to help replace an all-purpose star.

But the difference-maker was the kicking game as Kahuku won its third straight state open division football championship Friday — 21-19 over Mililani.

It was about redemption, an unusual role for Big Red. The Trojans had beaten them in the regular season. And Kahuku played 31⁄2 quarters without Kaimana Carvalho, its most explosive player on offense, defense and special teams.

Carvalho left and did not return to the game after a helmet-to-helmet hit, the first of two that resulted in ejections of Mililani players. Carvalho appeared OK after the game, and he and the player who hit him, Kamaehu Roman, hugged each other in the postgame handshake line.

“When you lose someone like that you take a hit, in all three phases,” said Kaimana’s uncle, and Kahuku head coach, Sterling Carvalho. “But Kahuku is not about one player.”

And, it’s not just about offense and defense and power and speed. Kahuku can also play the deception game, like it did on the opening kickoff, when Malakai Vendiola recovered after some pinball action.

Then Kache Kaio cashed in on a 19-yard TD pass from Tuli Tagovailoa-Amosa.

“That’s what we scouted,” Sterling Carvalho said of the onside kick.

And although Kahuku lost Kaimana Carvalho, it still had his dad, Stewart — Sterling’s twin brother and the special teams coach.

“Stewart saw it,” Sterling said. “Last game of the year. Why not?”

Kahuku never trailed, until Mililani went ahead late on Davyn Joseph’s 89-yard touchdown on a pass from Kini McMillan.

But special teams struck again for the North Shore powerhouse, as Diezel Kamoku sped 86 yards down the Kahuku sideline with a Mililani punt.

Then, the final kick — Zaden Mariteragi pooched one to keep it away from Joseph. It worked to better than perfection as Manulele Ah You (who earlier intercepted a pass in the end zone) wrestled the ball away from a Trojan, allowing Kahuku to run out the clock.

“We brain-farted on special teams,” Mililani coach Rod York said.

Despite the tough loss, York was like just about everyone else there — they loved the venue. For the first time, the state championship game was played at the University of Hawaii’s Ching Field.

“It was electric,” Sterling Carvalho said.

Official attendance was 7,322 … a disappointingly low number since Ching’s capacity is 15,194. But the bottom line for the fans is that more than 2,000 additional spectators got to watch their nephew, classmate or neighbor play in perhaps the biggest game of his life, in person, than if the game were at a school field.

For the players, you can bet competing on the field where the state’s only college team plays its games felt like being a member of Kahuku’s kickoff squad or punt return unit Friday.

“It’s a privilege and an honor to play special teams,” Sterling Carvalho said.