Kahuku running back Marcus Muti receives the ball from quarterback Tuli Wily-Matagi to attempt for yardage gains. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Castle wide receiver Keanu Furtado makes his team's first touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter against Kahuku. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Kahuku RB Polikapo Liua breaks through Castle defense for a touchdown. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Fri, Sep 13, 2013 @ Kahuku [ 7:30 pm ]

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Castle

13

Kahuku

48

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Castle (3-6-0)	0	0	0	13	13
Kahuku (6-5-0)	14	21	0	13	48

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Tuli Wily-Matagi 35 yd 1 TD

Stephen Lee 148 yd 2 TD

Polikapo Liua, Jr. 51 yd 3 TD

Kuuliko Carvalho 35 yd 1 TD

Keanu Furtado 57 yd 1 TD

KAHUKU — By Reggie Torres' count, his team is still two weeks away from playing at its potential.

Kahuku, ranked fifth in the ScoringLive/OC16 Division I Power Rankings, took another step toward its coaches' expectation Friday night with a 48-13 win over Castle in an Oahu Interscholastic Association Red East Conference game at Carleton E. Weimer Field.

PJ Liua scored three first-half rushing touchdowns and the Red Raiders accumulated 208 rushing yards to win their second straight game to improve to 3-2 overall and 3-0 in the OIA Red East. The Knights, who were held to 127 yards of total offense and fell behind 35-0 by halftime, dropped to 2-4 overall and 1-3 in league play.

"Our defense stepped it up for the first three quarters — we were pitching a shutout — and on offense, we minimized our turnovers and we minimized our penalties," said Torres, whose team had just one giveaway on a first-half fumble and committed 10 penalties for 90 yards. "Our penalties were down until that fourth quarter with kids subbing in and you know, of course, those mistakes will happen, but prior to that with our starters we minimized our turnovers, we minimized our penalties and those were areas that we really needed to fix."

Liua, who finished with game-highs of 11 rushes for 51 yards, carried the Red Raiders' rushing game, which was without tailback Soli Afalava, who suffered a broken collarbone against Moanalua last week and is likely done for the remainder of the season.

"We weren't sure if Soli was going to be out, but this week our running backs just had to practice harder knowing that he (may) be out," said Liua, who scored on rushes of 10, 2 and 2 yards. "We pulled over some other guys from defense and we just tried them out."

Kahuku ran the ball 49 times with 12 different ball carries for an average of 4.2 yards per rush. Salanoa Wily and Pupi Siilata each scored on a touchdown run and Tuli Wily-Matagi threw a fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Kuuliko Carvalho. Wily-Matagi attempted just four passes and completed two of them for 35 yards — both to Carvalho.

The Red Raider defense did its share in the win. They shutdown the Knights' run game for minus-50 yards and intercepted three passes, including a pair picks by cornerback John Farley.

"It was just everybody doing their part, everybody sticking to their assignments and we came out with the 'W,'" said Farley, who noted the extra conditioning in practices leading up to the game helped down the stretch. "We ran more (this week). These guys are fast, these guys are quick so we had to do a lot of conditioning."

Castle's quarterback tandem of Pono Makekau and Stephen Lee combined to complete 16 of 40 passes for 177 yards. Makekau started the game and finished 4-of-14 passing for 29 yards with two interceptions. Lee entered the game in the second quarter and played the entire second half. He completed 12 of 26 passes for 148 yards and threw two fourth-quarter touchdown passes.

"It's a team concept that (the defense is) in and Farley did a great job — he's a great athlete — but also the quarterback is throwing the ball (sooner) than he'd like to and he's throwing a rubber ball because we were playing in the mud and that's not the ball he's used to and so it helped us, you know, the weather and the mud," Torres said. "At the same time, the front four were putting a lot of pressure on the quarterback so he had to let go of the ball earlier than he wanted to."

Manaia Atuaia opened the scoring on a 35-yard return off a short Castle punt midway through the first quarter. It was the second touchdown Atuaia scored in as many weeks. The sophomore linebacker picked off two passes and returned one for a touchdown in a win over Moanalua last week.

Liua punctuated a 10-play, 54-yard drive with his first touchdown run late in the first quarter. Liua received the toss from Wily-Matagi, who nearly lost his balance after he was tripped while pulling away from center, and busted up the middle for the 10-yard scoring run.

Another Castle special teams' miscue on a punt led to a short field for the Red Raiders early in the second quarter. Salanoa Wily tackled Knights' punter Bryson Aiwohi deep in Castle territory at the 9-yard line after the long snap sailed over the head of Aiwohi. Three plays later, Wily lined up in the backfield and punched in a two-yard touchdown run. Wily also had two sacks on defense.

Kahuku extended its lead to 28-0 following a 2-yard touchdown run by Liua and the ensuing PAT by Jake Samsel with just under seven minutes left in the second quarter.

Liua scored his third touchdown — another 2-yard run — with just 36 seconds remaining in the first half. The Red Raiders lined up for an apparent 19-yard field goal with Samsel, but Liua took the direct snap instead and plunged across the goal line on fourth-and-goal.

"I think we're all right, but we can still progress in some other stuff that we messed up on, but our defense did pretty good today and so did our offense, but there's things we can progress in," Liua said.

Kahuku led 35-0 at halftime and the score held until Lee found Keanu Furtado for a 20-yard touchdown pass 48 seconds into the fourth quarter. Lee hooked up with Ikaika Kanekoa for a 27-yard touchdown pass on Castle's next possession to cut the Red Raiders' lead to 35-13.

Wily-Matagi answered on Kahuku's ensuing drive with his 25-yard touchdown pass to Carvalho and following a interception by defensive lineman Kahale Kaahu, Siilata closed the scoring with his 16-yard touchdown run with 32 seconds left in the game.

Torres said he plans to continue to split the carries between a number of players in the foreseeable future.

"Until someone steps forward, until someone steps up and says 'I want this position,' we're going to continue doing it," Torres said. "If you noticed, we weren't throwing a a lot (because) we were trying to find us a tailback. We got some kids that looked all right and today they did pretty good, so it's going to still be a battle. We still got some work ahead of us."

Kahuku converted on eight of its 14 third downs and both of its fourth-down tries. The Red Raiders, who are in first place in the seven-team Red East with three games to play, plays McKinley Friday at Roosevelt's Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium.

"(The win) just moves us up in the rankings and as far as our division goes we're still undefeated, but we're looking at the strides we're making as a team and we're getting better as a team," Torres said. "We're looking at our progression and how much work we need to do as far as where we want to be and not necessarily winning, but as far as playing the football that we'd like to see them play."
 
Castle was just four of 13 on third downs and had minus-11 yards of offense in the first half. The Knights, who have lost three of their last four, sit in sixth place with two games left to play following a bye next week.