OIA Football
Nanakuli slips past Pearl City, 37-36, for OIA Division II title


   



Fri, Oct 31, 2014 @ Aloha Stadium [ 5:30 pm ]


Final/OT 1 2 3 4 OT T
Pearl City (8-3-0) 9 6 7 8736
Nanakuli (10-1-0) 0 13 10 7737
Kale Kanehailua 140 yd 2 TD
Jordan Taamu 289 yd 3 TD
Isain Wong 59 yd 1 TD

HALAWA — Keala Watson's words proved to be prophetic.

Nanakuli did just enough Friday night to slip past Pearl City, 37-36, in a down-to-the-wire Oahu Interscholastic Association Division II championship game before a raucous crowd of about 8,000 at Hawaiian Airlines Field at Aloha Stadium.

The win — which was not in hand until a missed Pearl City extra point in overtime — lifted the Golden Hawks to 10-0 on the season and its first league football crown since 1983 and just the second in school history.

"I said it in the beginning, before the game started, that this game would come down to a single play and the team that makes one less mistake would win the game," said Watson, Nanakuli's second-year head coach. "It was a really good game. Pearl City came out and showed us a good game — it was going to be a tight one — if we kept going we could have gone back-and-forth all night long."

The teams went into overtime knotted at 30. Nanakuli got the ball first and needed just two plays to score. Kale Kanehailua aired out a deep pass along the left sideline for Isain Wong, who laid out for the go-ahead score.

"My quarterback called it. He said to run 100 percent, run my full speed and he would get it to me," said Wong, who also caught the go-ahead score in a semifinal win over Kalani two weeks ago. "He threw the ball and I just focused on the ball and made the catch."

Following the score, Clifford Cunningham tacked on the extra point to give the Golden Hawks a 37-30 advantage.

Pearl City had its turn on offense next and scored three plays in on a 25-yard pass from Jordan Taamu to Keelan Domingo-Ishikawa to make the score 37-36. However, a costly delay-of-game penalty prior to the PAT pushed it back to the 8-yard line. The ensuing kick sailed wide right and was no good, igniting Nanakuli's championship celebration.

"It feels great because we've put in a lot of work this whole year and it finally pays off," said Kanehailua, who completed 12 of his 17 pass attempts for 140 yards and two touchdowns.

The Golden Hawks struggled to find a rhythm in the first half, when it committed 10 penalties to just two for Pearl City, and gained just 89 yards on offense.

"We just had to get ourselves together because we couldn't hear — it was too loud — and that's what caused those penalties," Kanehailua said.

However, it was Pearl City who proved to be error prone after halftime. It was whistled for nine of its 11 penalties in the second half.

"We've had struggles with first halves, which we've tried to correct, (but) our guys will never give up on us," Watson said. "The second half is where they come out and shine. We were just lucky enough to make one more play."

Pearl City got on the board first with a 10-yard pass from Taamu to Israel Kaleo with 7:30 left in the first quarter. Kaleo ran a slant pattern from the right side of the field and Taamu hit in in stride as he crossed the goal line.

Late in the first quarter, Nanakuli right tackle Lyle Tuiloma was penalized for holding in the end zone, which resulted in a Pearl City safety. The Chargers also got the ball back on the ensuing free kick and drove 65 yards in just eight plays, capped by Dominic Maneafaiga's 10-yard touchdown run on a direct snap. The scoring play was set-up by a 24-yard double pass from Kavoissie Mason to Maneafaiga one play earlier on a 4th-and-9.

Nanakuli made the most of a Charger miscue midway through the second quarter. Taamu slung a lateral to the right sideline that was intended for Maneafaiga, but it was snatched from midair by the Golden Hawks' Alexcio Paulo-Meyers, who returned it 36 yards inside the Pearl City 10. Three plays later, Makaila Haina-Horswill broke four tackles en route to the end zone on a 10-yard touchdown run to get Nanakuli on the board.

"All week we just did our homework and plain and simple, I just had to study about (Maneafaiga) because he's a great man and I just had to step my game up because I knew he was going to put on a show tonight," Paulo-Meyers said.

Maneafaiga finished with 10 receptions for 151 yards and rushed for two touchdowns in a losing effort.

The Golden Hawks made a big defensive stand on the Chargers' ensuing possession when Jayden McCoy stuffed for no gain Taamu on a sneak attempt on 4th-and-1.

Nanakuli got the ball back with 3:16 left in the half and put together a 10-play drive that spanned 42 yards and included a pair of fourth-down conversions, including the 37-yard touchdown pass from Kanehailua to Keanu Momoa on a Hail Mary. Kanehailua bought time in the backfield and was sprung loose by a punishing block by Kalae Wong before launching a deep pass to Momoa, who took the ball away from Pearl City's Christopher Kalu in the end zone on the last play before halftime. The two-point conversion pass by Kanehailua fell incomplete and the Chargers held a 15-13 lead at the intermission.

The teams exchanged scores early in the third quarter when Pearl City got a 2-yard touchdown run by Maneafaiga and Luke Luna-Luuloa returned the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a Nanakuli touchdown.

Another Pearl City miscue on a low punt snap that went out of the end zone resulted in a Nanakuli safety, which gave it a 23-22 lead with 4:41 left in the third quarter.

The score held until Taamu hooked up with Dante McGee on a 13-yard touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter. Taamu hit Kaleo on the 2-point conversion to give the Chargers a 30-23 lead.

Haku Kamai's 2-yard jaunt into the end zone midway through the fourth quarter, and the PAT by Cunningham to follow, tied it at 30.

Taamu finished with 289 passing yards on 23-of-37 passing with one interception. Jackson Fuamatu led Pearl City defensively with a game-high 12 tackles.

Nanakuli, which is ranked fourth in the ScoringLive/OC16 D2 Power Rankings, will travel to the Big Island and play Kamehameha-Hawaii in a state tournament first-round game next week.

"It feels good, It feels like payday," Watson said. "We tell our kids that we bust our butts off, we work hard, and we're rewarded with wins, we are rewarded with success, we are rewarded with good grades and tonight, we're rewarded with a championship."

Pearl City, the fifth-ranked team in D2, fell to 0-3 in OIA championship games. It also reached the title game last year but lost to eventual state-champion Kaiser.

The Chargers also lost to Golden Hawks, 28-21, in a regular-season meeting back on Sept. 26 of this year. They will travel to Kauai and play Kapaa in next week's first round of the state tournament.

It was the first time in the 12-year history of the D2 league tournament that the title game went to overtime and also marked the highest-scoring D2 championship game ever.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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