Kahuku coach Reggie Torres (left) and Moanalua coach Arnold Martinez (right) will face off in a key OIA Red East tilt Saturday. ScoringLive photo illustration

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One team is on a high. The other? Not so much.

Differences apart, both Moanalua and Kahuku have one striking similarity: just one win through the first month of the season.

Na Menehune (1-3 overall, 1-1 OIA Red East) are coming off a 52-0 win over Kailua, in which quarterback Micah Kaneshiro threw for 285 yards and six touchdowns. Meanwhile, the Red Raiders (1-2 overall, 1-0 OIA Red East) allowed an 80-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage and were never in it in a 38-15 loss at Utah 4A-powerhouse East last week.

Two days before their teams do battle, ScoringLive caught up with Moanalua's Arnold Martinez and Kahuku's Reggie Torres to get their thoughts on the key OIA Red East game.

ScoringLive: Describe your team's current situation in one word.

Arnold Martinez: "Positive. We've got great guys that work hard and want to get better everyday and I'm excited about coming to practice everyday to coach them."

Reggie Torres: "How about two words? Getting better. We challenged three teams, two of them being Saint Louis and East (Utah). East had about 90 returnees from a state championship team last year and they handed it to us, but just like against Saint Louis we gave up big plays. There's always room for improvement. Those teams showed us what we need to work on, which gives us the opportunity to go back and fix things."

SL: What have you learned about your team in the first four weeks?

AM: "I've learned that we've got some great kids with great attitudes. The guys work tremendously hard. We just have great energy with the team. We don't have selfish issues that we have to deal with, nothing like that."

RT: "That we are young and naïve. That some of the kids are not in the position that we felt they should be in and we're not as aggressive as we thought we would be."

SL: How near - or far - is your team from playing at its potential?

AM: "I think last week we made a breakthrough, obviously. Getting a shutout is very difficult to do and we were able to put up a lot of points. We minimized our mistakes and I think the guys learned when we don't shoot ourselves in the foot - particularly in that McKinley game when we had three or four turnovers, miscommunication, poor execution here and there - they realized ‘OK, if we just execute and focus on the little things then we can play at our potential. It was a good step to win that this last game. Hopefully we can continue that. We're getting closer, that's for sure."

RT: "I would say three more weeks."

SL: Which individual(s) have been leading the way for your team?

AM: "On defense, Josh Ramelb, our middle linebacker. He's a great guy, really encouraging. Another linebacker, Christian Yap, just puts his hard hat on, comes to work every play, every down, every practice. Ratu Mafileo on the D-line – we missed him the first two games, but got him back for the McKinley game. Those guys are taking the lead on defense. On offense, Chad Aragon is fantastic. He makes a lot of big plays, gets all purpose yards, returns kicks, catches balls, he even get some carries and what makes him lead the way is his attitude. Donald Lambert is a workaholic – teams have been focusing on him a lot, playing over the top, bracketing him, which has been freeing up someone else – and Micah (Kaneshiro) is coming along. He's shown a lot of improvement in the last few games. On the line, Kit Taura is one of our tackles and a captain and he's helping that line come along with their chemistry."

RT: "PJ Liua, Lamone Williams are two of the mainstays and the most consistent. We've only got four returning starters from last year – two on offense and two on defense. Lamone and Clifford Ramseyer are the only defensive guys we have back and Ramseyer just got cleared last week after injuring his ankle this summer. PJ and Tuli Wily-Matagi are the only two offensive guys we have back and Tuli was a tight end last year."

SL: What is your take on your opponent this Saturday?

AM: "Well, Kahuku is Kahuku and they just reload every year. They have numbers, size, speed, athleticism and when they start executing behind all of that talent that they have, they are going to be a very good team. We're fortunate to have played them tough the last two times and we're going to go out there and hopefully compete at our highest potential and do the best we can. Reggie and his staff do a fantastic job. He's a great technician as far as coaching and he has a lot of good players. It's always, for anybody, a formidable task to go and play Kahuku, but we have a saying: 'It's not about who we play, but it's always about how we play.' It's about doing the best we can and controlling what we can control on our side, keeping our mistakes to a minimum, and not worrying about the other stuff."

RT: "Moanalua is like us, they're finding their way right now through some ups and downs. They're tough and they're passionate and Arnold and the guys there do a great job with those kids."

SL: How important is this game toward the Red East standings?

AM: "Well, they won it last year and you always have to dethrone the champ. Wins and losses are important toward the postseason and seeding, but we don't want to put the cart before the horse. We try to focus on the little things, the daily things that can make you success in the game. That said, anybody who can end up fortunate enough to have more points than Kahuku at the end of the game, you obviously set-up the rest of the season for yourself – you would think – but, you can't predict anything and you certainly don't want to count your chickens before they hatch. It'd be a huge game to get that under your belt, so we'll do the best we can."

RT: "You know, for us, we need to get in the positives. 1-2 is not really good for us, but like I said, we played two tough teams that and we've got to get back on the winning side. Our kids are tough when they believe. We're not a bad team, we just played two better teams."

Kickoff between Moanalua and No. 5 Kahuku is set for 6 p.m. Saturday at Carleton Weimer Field. The game will be televised live statewide by OC16.