Kapaa defense stands tall against Nanakuli

The Kapaa defense forced four turnovers and held Nanakuli to a 4-for-18 conversion rate on third downs in the contest. Eugene Tanner | SL

They say defense wins championships… It wins preseason games too.

Kapaa held Nanakuli without a touchdown in its non-league 20-2 win over the Golden Hawks in a game between the top two ranked teams in the Hawaiian Electric Division II Power Rankings. The Warriors forced four turnovers in the contest and was able to make several stops on fourth down to preserve the victory.

"This win is pretty big, there was a lot of hype coming into this game," said linebacker Mosese Fifita, who recorded a game-high 11 tackles. "The team came through, played with faith and everybody did their assignments."

Fifita also recovered a fumble on fourth down and took it 26 yards to the house to help give Kapaa a 14-2 lead with 7:15 left in the fourth quarter. Coincidentally Fifita was responsible for the Warriors' lone turnover of the night, a fumble in the red zone on Kapaa's opening drive.

"Coaches were depending on me to go into the end zone the first time so I knew I had to pick up my play on the defensive side of the ball," said Fifita.

The defensive touchdown was one of four failed fourth down conversions by the Golden Hawks. Nanakuli went for it on fourth down on its second drive of the second half on a bubble screen to Isian Wong-Lonzanida, but was stopped short in the backfield by Jason Hawthorne.

Nanakuli also attempted a fake punt and had a screen play on fourth-and-one blown up by Fifita in the final period. Other than the final minute of the game when the game was already decided, the only time the Golden Hawks converted on fourth down was on their opening possession.

Casey Delima recovered Fifita's fumble at the Nanakuli nine-yard line to give the Golden Hawks their first series of the game. Nanakuli would march it all the way down to the Kapaa one-yard line on 16 plays before a fumble derailed the drive. Hawthorne, who was playing is his first varsity game, was credited with the recovery.

"We bend, but we didn't break," Kapaa coach Phillip Rapozo said on his defense. "When we needed to stop them, we did it. That's what this defense is all about. I'm not surprised."

Bryce Dato, the only returning starting defensive back for the Warriors, was responsible for the other two Nanakuli turnovers, with two second half interceptions on quarterback Nainoa Banks.

"Bryce is an animal," Fifita said on Dato. "He's small, but he plays big. He's one of the boys that can pick up this defense and really pump them up to play even harder and go even more."

Banks completed 12 of his 16 passes for 114 yards in the first half, but was pressured heavily after the break and finished with 202 yards on 23 of 40 passing.

"We just played our basic defense in the second half," explained Fifita. "We was trying to do a lot of fancy stuff earlier, but that didn't work. We went back to the basics and it worked out pretty well so we stuck with it the whole game."

The Nanakuli offense had their opportunities thanks to the defense forcing six three-and-outs, a handful of shanked punts and a muffed punt on Kapaa, but could not hit pay dirt against the Warriors' defense.

"Just bad luck," said Nanakuli coach Keala Watson. "I haven't had a chance to look at the stats but I can imagine that we had a lot of yards. There was some nice long drives. Defense got to take breaks on the sideline because the offense was just marching, but we could never punch anything in."

Reach Michael Lasquero at [email protected].