McKinney passes, runs past Radford, 37-14


Trent McKinney rushed for 104 yards and 2 scores. Robin Sakamoto | Special to SL
Quarterback Trent McKinney passed for three touchdowns and ran for two more and Mililani rolled over Radford, 37-14, Saturday night at John E. Velasco Stadium on the Rams' campus.

It was the Oahu Interscholastic Association Red West season opener for both teams.

McKinney completed 16 of 27 for 240 yards. He had TD passes of 50 and 35 yards to wideout Hassan Richardson and a 24-yarder to Taylor Searle. For good measure, McKinney also rushed for 104 yards, including TD runs 16 and five yards for the Trojans (3-0 overall, 1-0 OIA Red West).

Richardson, a 6-foot-4, 190-pound senior, had five catches for 152 yards, despite press coverage by 6-1 cornerback Dorsey Norris, who actually minimized damage by breaking up several pass plays.

On his second TD catch of the game, Norris had Richardson perfectly covered being on the receiver's inside. But McKinney's pass sailed a little to the outside, but Richardson adjusted to the ball and on what was basically a play that was impossible to defend.

"We do this all day long," Richardson said. "We practice this after practice, keep doing it."

"Definitely we relied on the athleticism of our offensive skills players," Trojans' first-year coach Rod York said. ""We have 6-4, 6-5 on the outside (referring to wideouts Richardson and Ervan Jean-Pierre) who are aggressive to the ball. We have a slot who can hit you, a big O-line, a running back. But we just took what they gave us."

It was the Rams who scored first after Krix Hugley blocked a punt on fourth-and-16 at the Trojans' 20 and took over at the Mililani 3. Running back Andrew Togialua pounded the middle for a three-yard TD run, but Cayman Conley's PAT missed, keeping it 6-0.

The Trojans responded with 37 unanswered points - the three TD passes by McKinney, his two TD runs and Jarin Morikawa's 25-yard field goal - before the Rams scored with 4:13 left in the game on a Maika Ulufale 19-yard TD pass to Phil Hogan. Dorsey's reception from Ulufale on the 2-point conversion pulled the Rams (1-2, 0-1) to 37-14.

"We started out rough," York said. "They blocked our punt, scored first. Then we lost momentum. Radford gave us one hell of a game. The score doesn't indicate the way the game was played."

Mililani's defense had interceptions from safety Elijah Lagafuaina and cornerback Ethan Cook. The Trojans also had six sacks.

Rams' QB Maika Ulufale was 13 of 29 for 185 yards. T.J. Reid led the Rams with five catches for 78 yards.


Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at [email protected].