Iolani cruises past Radford, 43-0, into D2 final


HALAWA - For the Iolani football team, it was business as usual Saturday night.

The Raiders rolled to a 43-0 shutout of Radford in a semifinal game of the First Hawaiian Bank/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II Football State Championships semifinal game at Hawaiian Airlines Field at Aloha Stadium.

Iolani, the tournament's top seed and champion of the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, improved to 8-3 before a crowd of 3,661 fans and will try for its sixth consecutive state title against Lahainaluna in the 4 p.m. championship Friday at Aloha Stadium. The Lunas beat Nanakuli, 28-0, in the other semifinal Saturday.

"It was a good night as a whole for the offense," Raiders' quarterback Reece Foy said. "It starts up front with the line, of course. They did a good job of protecting when (Radford) brought pressure and just made it easy for me to get short passes out and guys made plays."

Despite the dominating performance, the Raiders were noticeably business-like after the obligatory postgame handshakes.

"The players know that we're not done yet," Iolani coach Wendell Look. "They played a pretty good first half, but we still got next week, so hopefully they can stay focused and take care of business next week; Thats's the one that everyone wants."

Foy, a senior and third-year starter, threw for 215 yards and four touchdowns on 13-of-17 passing in just one half of action. He threw touchdown passes of 21, 18, 42 and 21 yards to four different receivers. Foy was not sacked and did not throw an interception.

"We expect that from him," Look said of Foy. "He's a three-year veteran, he's played in these kind of games before and he's the playmaker that we have to depend on."

Tanner Nishioka was on the receiving end of eight of Foy's passes for 125 yards, including a 42-yard touchdown early in the second quarter. Running back Yuuya Kato carried 17 times for 108 yards and closed out the scoring with his 1-yard touchdown run late in the second quarter. He also caught a 21-yard scoring strike from Foy.

"We didn't want to come out slow like we had in the past, we wanted to come out firing," Nishioka said.

The Raiders defense did their part with five takeaways, including four in the first quarter. Josiah Situmeang sparked Iolani with his 45-yard interception return midway through the opening quarter.

"We were struggling a little bit on offense in that first series and that particular play was (Radford's) bread-and-butter play that they've been going to all season and (Situmeang) did a good job and made a good play on that," Look said.

Max Look intercepted a Radford pass in the second quarter at the Iolani 1-yard line and returned it 59 yards to set-up Kato's 1-yard touchdown run. JT Los Banos had the other pick and Joshua Gonzaga and Kevin Togami each recovered a fumble for the Raiders.

Rams' quarterback Cody Lui-Yuen was just 15-of-40 passing for 141 yards and two interceptions. Radford played most of the game without running back Chris Jackson, who suffered an ankle injury in the first-round win at Kauai last week.

On its opening drive, Radford got down to the Iolani 9-yard line and had first-and-goal. However, it came up empty, going for it - and failing to convert - on fourth-and-goal from the 6.

Lui-Yuen was picked off by Situmeang on his next pass attempt at the Rams' 45-yard line. Situmeang took it back up the middle of the field to the end zone and following the Jordan Genovia extra point, Iolani took a 7-0 lead.

Four plays later, Lui-Yuen threw a lateral, which was recovered by the Iolani defense and three plays later, Foy hit Austin Ohira for a 21-yard score. Max Look ran in the two-point conversion to make it, 15-0, with 4:21 left in the first quarter.

"We came out with a sense of urgency, knowing that Radford is a very good team and that they'd come out fast," Foy said. "We tried to match their intensity on offense and defense and we just kept reiterating that 'We've got to start fast, we've got to start fast,' because we knew that with a three-week break, it would have been easy for us to come out slow."

The Rams again turned it over on a fumble on their very next offensive play and the Raiders recycled the turnover into an 18-yard touchdown pass from Foy to Chad Hanaoka.

Foy threw his third scoring strike early in the second quarter - a 42-yarder to Nishioka - on a deep ball down the left sideline to extend the Raiders' lead to 29-0.

Iolani capped its next drive with Foy's 20-yard touchdown pass to Kato on a screen pass to go up, 36-0.

Radford orchestrated a 16-play drive down to the Iolani 13-yard line, before Max Look intercepted Lui-Yuen and Kato scored his 1-yard touchdown run with eight seconds left in the first half.

Iolani led, 43-0, at the intermission and the entire second half was played under the running-clock, mercy rule. It was the most points scored in a half in a D2 state-tournament game. Backup quarterback Easton Tsubata played most of the second half, along with numerous other reserves.

"It's always nice to get everybody some playing time," Look said. "All these kids have worked hard. These kids don't get much playing time during the season and these kids deserve it."

Iolani, which has won the D2 state title in six of the last seven years, had a first-round bye last week and had not played a game since its ILH finale on Oct. 27. It will be the Raiders eighth trip to the state final in nine years.

"The guys are happy, but we have to keep it all in perspective," Foy said. "Tonight, we didn't reach our goal. Our goal is to win a state championship and coach is always reminding us that about that and we're happy, but we know that we have more work to do and we'll come out Monday ready to go."

The Rams, the Oahu Interscholastic Association champion, end their season with an 11-2 record. It was the third time that Iolani beat Radford in the state tournament. The Raiders beat the Rams in both the 2005 and 2008 D2 title games.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].