Cougars gallop past Mustangs on Homecoming night

The Cougars' defense played its part to back the offense, holding the Mustangs to 90 yards of total offense in a 44-7 win on Homecoming Night at Kaiser Stadium. Jaden Ing | Special to SL

The Cougars' piled on 408 yards of offense in a rout of the Kalaheo Mustangs on Homecoming Night at Kaiser Stadium.

In their first home game featuring fans since the end of the 2019 season, Kaiser jumped out to an early 14-0 lead in the opening quarter on an 80 yard kickoff return for a score by Kai Strawn and a one yard touchdown run by Ryder Rodrigues.

The aerial attack of the Cougars came alive in the second quarter, as quarterback Easton Yoshino tossed two scores, one to Keagan Lime for four yards and the other to Kamakana Mahiko for 38. Tea Nuuhiwa-Santos capped the first half scoring with a three yard plunge to make the score 34-0 at the break.

Coming out of the break, Kaiser added an Ian Shearer 34 yard field goal to invoke the mercy rule, and tacked on one final score late in the third on Donovan Reis' 14 yard pass to Ethan Beltran.

Kalaheo got on the board late in the fourth, as Reis Weber plunged across the goal line from nine yards out.

A balanced Kaiser attack went for 227 yards in the air and another 181 on the ground.

Yoshino was an efficient 15 of 19 passing for 213 yards and two scores, while Rodrigues had a game high 72 rushing yards and a score. Three Cougars' pass catches recorded at least 50 yards, led by Mahiko (59 yards and a TD). Justin Kanekoa had a quiet five grabs for 56 yards and Reis, who later took over as quarterback, had two receptions for 50 yards.