The Crusaders combined for a sack on Iolani QB Tai-John Mizutani. Tyler Guieb | SL

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Fri, Sep 23, 2016 @ Iolani [ 3:15 pm ]

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Saint Louis

42

Iolani

24

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Saint Louis (10-1-0)	21	7	14	0	42
Iolani (5-8-0)	7	7	10	0	24

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Tai-John Mizutani 265 yd

Tua Tagovailoa 494 yd 5 TD

KJ Pascua 123 yd 3 TD

Tua Tagovailoa 43 yd

Justin Genovia 140 yd

Noah Alejado 147 yd

Saint Louis' 42-24 win over Iolani certainly looked like your typical dominating performance on the surface, but as the homecoming crowd in attendance will attest, the Raiders gave the Crusaders about as good of a game as any team has thus far.

"I'm really proud," said quarterback Tai-John Mizutani on the Raiders' performance against the Crusaders. "That's our goal. Just to be competitive and get our first ILH win. It helped because we were a little more excited and we were all amped up for the game. We felt like they weren't going to be ready to play us today. Even though we didn't win we put up a good fight and I am proud of my guys for that.

The Raiders, ranked ninth in the Hawaiian Electric/ScoringLive Power Rankings, clawed back from deficits of 14-0 and 28-7, fueled largely by the power running of KJ Pascua, who finished with 123 yards rushing on 31 carries and three scores.

"To be honest he runs like that ever game," said Mizutani of Pascua. "Just today we had a little more holes because the front they were playing was a little more beneficial to our line. I am not surprised, not surprised at all."

Pascua's threat on the ground opened up the lanes for Mizutani, who racked up 265 yards of passing on the afternoon. His favorite target was clearly Justin Genovia, who hauled in 11 passes for 140 yards, but two others, Brent Nagami and Jonah Miyazawa snagged six each. In total, seven pass catchers recorded at least one reception off the arm of Mizutani.

The 418 yards of total offense in the contest was a far cry from the aggregate amount in the teams' first meeting, where the Raiders only managed 181 and just 18 on the ground.

"It's very important," said Pascua of finding some balance on offense. "All season we have been looking to do that. Our season started off pretty bad but now that we are getting into our flow. The first time we played Saint Louis we did not have it. When we played Kamehameha we started to get into it. Then Punahou we stepped it up and today we were in the groove. We just brought a good balance today. It kept them off in the pass rush a little bit so he could keep running the ball too."

Despite the strides made by Iolani on offense, there was no stopping the onslaught put on by Saint Louis when they had the ball.

The 602 yards of total offense put up against Iolani eclipsed the previous high of 586 put up in a 64-44 win over Punahou on September 9.

Tua Tagovailoa put up big numbers on the afternoon, 41-of-47 passing for 494 yards and five touchdown passes. He completed at least one pass to nine different receivers, and six of them brought in at least four passes each.

Tagovailoa favorite target on the day was Noah Alejado, who recorded 11 receptions for 147 yards, but in the red zone, the love was spread around, with four different pass catchers accounting for five aerial scores. Ronson Young was the lone multi-touchdown recipient with two scoring grabs for Saint Louis in the first quarter, from nine and 18 yards respectively.

Yes, Tagovailoa was intercepted once and also lost a fumble at the goal line, but otherwise put on a passing clinic which inlcuded a pair of shots down the left sideline in the waning moments of the half that easily traveled 40 yards in the air on a rope just out of the reach of his intended target.

"Especially coming into this game we knew how good he was we knew the accolades he had, so we just weren't gonna let him out play us. He still had a great game but I thought our defense contained him and put up a good fight," said Mizutani.

Kaua Nishigaya notched 12 1/2 tackles and Helam Baldomero had a pair of interceptions to go along with 7 1/2 tackles to lead the Raiders defensively.