Hawaiian Electric Game of the Week
Hurricanes rock Punahou, 33-21; Kahuku next


   



Sat, Nov 5, 2016 @ Aloha Stadium [ 7:30 pm ]


Final 1 2 3 4 T
Kapolei (10-3-0) 0 13 7 1333
Punahou (7-3-0) 7 0 14 021
Stephen Barber 169 yd 2 TD
Taulia Tagovailoa 367 yd 5 TD
Keala Martinson 168 yd 3 TD
Jaymin Sarono 87 yd 4 TD

HALAWA — Taulia Tagovailoa and the Kapolei Hurricanes had an axe to grind Saturday night and they took it out on Punahou.

Tagovailoa, a sophomore quarterback, passed for 367 yards and five touchdowns — four of them to slotback Jaymin Sarono — to lift Kapolei to a hard-earned 33-21 win over Punahou in a first-round game of the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Open Division Foorball State Championships.

A crowd of 5,540 fans at Hawaiian Tel FCU Field at Aloha Stadium saw the teams exchanged leads five times in a pulsating back-and-forth affair.

The Hurricanes, who are ranked fifth in the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Power Rankings, improved to 9-2 with the win and secured a date with top seed and defending champion Kahuku in next week's semifinal round.

"First and foremost, as always, glory to God," said Tagovailoa, who completed 28 of his 37 pass attempts without an interception. "It feels great; we made history. Kapolei was, I think, oh-and-six against (Interscholastic League of Honolulu) teams and we just had to show up today and that's what we did. We play for a one-man audience and when you play for a one-man audience — which is the Man above — only great things happen."

Actually, the Hurricanes were 1-8 all-time against teams from the ILH entering the contest, including an 0-2 mark against Punahou.

"This feels great," Kapolei coach Darren Hernandez said. "I'm a very talkative guy and I'm almost at a loss for words right now. I don't know what to say. I just love these guys."

The Hurricanes finished third in the Oahu Interscholastic Association, but were unhappy with their placement in the inaugural Open Division bracket.

"A lot of people questioned the pairings because they felt like the winner of that (third-place) game should have more of an advantageous seeding, so to speak," Hernandez said. "We got the bracket with Punahou and Kahuku, but it is what it is and our kids just showed up and played."

Tagovailoa said the team had no choice but to accept the decision of the state seeding committee.

"It's not the route anyone wanted, but we're kind of a different team and it's just the route we wanted and we're kind of cherishing and living in the moment right now," Tagovailoa said.

The third-ranked Buffanblu, who were making their first state tournament appearance since losing in the 2014 title game, saw their season end at 7-3.

Punahou held a 21-20 lead on Stephen Barber's 17-yard touchdown pass to Keala Martinson late in the third quarter, but just three plays into the fourth, Kapolei jumped back in front with a 3-yard Tagovailoa-to-Sarono scoring strike.

The scoring drive covered 70 yards in 11 plays and included two third-down conversions — both coming on 17-yard completions from Tagovailoa to Wyatt Perez.

The Buffanblu turned it over on its ensuing possession when Sitiveni Kaufusi was stripped by Kapolei's Adam Berg and Omar Mareko recovered the fumble.

Tagovailoa and company recycled it into an insurance score with a 4-yard scoring strike to Sarono to cap another 70-yard drive, which stretched their lead to 33-21 with 6:45 left in the game.

"They had a great connection tonight," Hernandez said of Tagovailoa, Sarono and Perez. "That chemistry that they have is just incredible and they've been doing it all year for us."

Sarono finished with a nine catches for 87 yards, while Perez made eight grabs for 132 yards. Tagovailoa's completion rate of 75.7 percent Saturday was his best single-game mark this year.

"They played great," Punahou coach Kale Ane said of the trio. "We sacked (Tagovailoa) a number of times, but he didn't get rattled and he made good decisions. When he scrambled he made plays that continued the drive — those hurt — so he's everything that we thought he would be and he's got a great future."

Punahou turned it over on downs on its next drive when defensive linemen Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa and Treven Maae combined to sack Barber on fourth-and-10 from the Hurricanes' 33-yard line.

The Hurricanes had five sacks on Buffanblu quarterbacks — all of them coming from the defensive line.

"That helped," Hernandez noted. "Our defensive backs, I thought, did a pretty good job. I thought the defensive line really stepped up and we were going to hope to contain them with our four defensive linemen and we were going to hope that we didn't have to bring a lot of blitzes, because we didn't want to compromise the structure of our defense and our secondary, so we laid off on blitzing and we tried to see if our d-line could make it happen. Credit our defensive coordinator, our d-line coaches, everybody on defense — they did a great job. Our offense was awesome, but credit the defense. The defense played a heck of a game."

The constant pressure from the Kapolei defensive front — and an untimely injury to starting quarterback Nick Kapule early in the second half — made for a difficult task, Ane said.

"It's nice when you don't have to blitz and you can get pressure with your just front four and you can cover with the seven," Ane said. "They did a good job of taking away some things we like to do, of putting pressure on the quarterback, and so it was tough. We were a little bit more one-dimensional than we'd like to be, but that's just the way it comes sometimes."

It was an unfortunate end to a brilliant senior season for Kapule, who ranks behind only Tagovailoa amongst Division I passing leaders with 2,786 yards and 31 touchdowns thrown this year. Ane said that Kapule, who was 9-of-15 passing for 120 yards with an interception before he left the game, was taken to an area hospital prior to the conclusion of the game to get checked for concussion-like symptoms.

In his place, Barber, a junior, completed 13 of 21 passes for 169 yards and two scores. However, he accrued minus-37 yards on five rushes — including a pair of sacks.  

"I think it's just that Stephen is a little rusty, but he practices really hard every day and he knows the system and so he played really well, (but) it's tough when you're behind like that and trying to make plays instead of letting the plays come to you, but he played remarkably well for the situation he was in," Ane said.

Kapule's 27-yard touchdown pass to Martinson opened the scoring late in the first quarter and gave the Buffanblu a 7-0 lead before Tagovailoa tossed scoring strikes of 22 and 19 yards to Sarono to send the Hurricanes into halftime with a 13-7 advantage.

The teams exchanged leads three times in the third quarter. Barber found Martinson for a 28-yard score to put Punahou ahead, 14-13. Tagovailoa hit Perez for a 7-yard TD a few minutes later to make it a 20-14 Kapolei lead before Martinson hauled in his third TD pass of the night with 2:38 left in the third. Jeff Chan's ensuing extra point gave the Buffanblu its final lead at 21-20.

Martinson finished with nine receptions for 168 yards.

Punahou was held to 287 yards of total offense, nearly 200 yards fewer than its per-game average. Its 14 points scored were also a season-low mark, after posting 44.8 points per game in its first nine contests.

Kapolei and Kahuku will meet in the nightcap of Friday's semifinal doubleheader at Aloha Stadium. Waianae will face No. 2 seed Saint Louis in the early game at 4:30 p.m.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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