Kahuku wide receiver Keala Santiago completes a 42-yard pass for a touchdown ahead of Waianae's Niko Kala-Mahiai in the second quarter to extend the Red Raiders' lead to 14-3 at the end of the first half. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Kahuku quarterback Tuli Wily-Matagi threw for 214 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Red Raiders over the Seariders, 28-15. Sean Nakamura | SL

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Sat, Oct 4, 2014 @ Aloha Stadium [ 5:20 pm ]

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Waianae

15

Kahuku

28

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Waianae (5-4-0)	0	3	0	12	15
Kahuku (9-3-0)	7	7	14	0	28

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Tuli Wily-Matagi 214 yd 4 TD

Ioane Kaluhiokalani Jr. 93 yd 1 TD

Kesi Ah-Hoy 32 yd

Ioane Kaluhiokalani Jr. 51 yd 1 TD

Likio Vea 64 yd 1 TD

Nayton Kuresa 31 yd

HALAWA — A week after an abysmal offensive performance, Kahuku found some rhythm behind quarterback Tuli Wily-Matagi Saturday night.

Wily-Matagi passed for 214 yards and four touchdowns as Kahuku went to the air in a 28-15 win over Waianae in the regular-season finale for both teams at Hawaiian Airlines Field at Aloha Stadium.

The win helped the fifth-ranked Red Raiders improve to 6-1 and clinched the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I Red's top seed in the upcoming 12-team playoffs, which gets underway next week.

"It was a good win," Kahuku coach Lee Leslie said. "It was good to have Tuli get dialed in and we've gone through some growing pains here the last couple of weeks and a lot of injuries up front. We've kept a lot of this close to our vest and just handled the adversity and I think we've come through the end of it."

The Red Raiders outgained the Seariders, 262 yards to 238, and needed just 57 rushing yards. Wily-Matagi threw scoring strikes of 57, 42, 6 and 33 yards and completed 11 of his 17 pass attempts.

"He's going through progressions that he's had to learn all the way into his senior year — just different things that he hasn't learned before — and it was easy early because we had a real easy schedule, (but) the problem was I had to pull him out at halftime because we were up by so much, so he didn't get those quarters to progress and it hurt him a little bit, but my hat goes off to him tonight," Leslie said of Wily-Matagi.

It was a stark contrast from last week, when the Red Raiders netted just 59 yards and got zero points from their offense in a 21-14 win over Leilehua. Against Kaiser two weeks ago, they turned it over seven times despite 462 offensive yards in a 20-19 loss.

"Our defense tonight was tough, as always, so it was definitely good for them to catch a break this week and have the offense take a lot of the pressure off of them," Wily-Matagi said.

Three of Kahuku's touchdown passes came on deep passes along the sideline against Waianae's man coverage.

"It looked like they were playing man on us and we definitely have the speed and receivers to get by those guys," Wily-Matagi said. "Our coach saw something and we went with it. The offensive line gave me time, the receivers made catches, so it was just a great win."

Kahuku opened the scoring late in the first quarter on Wily-Matagi's 57-yard pass to Likio Vea, who hauled in the pass along the right sideline and broke a tackle en route to the end zone.

Waianae came back with a 36-yard field goal by Niko Kala-Mahiai on its ensuing drive, but midway through the second quarter, Wily-Matagi connected with Keala Santiago on a 42-yard touchdown along the left sideline to give Kahuku a 14-3 halftime lead.

It was early in the third quarter where the Red Raiders seized control of the game. On their opening possession of the second half, they drove 76 yards in nine plays, capped by Wily-Matagi's 6-yard touchdown pass to Chance Maghanoy.

Kahuku's defense forced a three-and-out by Waianae on their next drive and gave the offense the ball back deep in Seariders' territory. Two plays later, Wily-Matagi and Maghanoy hooked up for a 33-yard score on a post pattern. Maghanoy got past the defender assigned to him and Wily-Matagi delivered an easy pass over the middle with no safeties in the area.

"We saw that some of the backside plays, the safeties weren't coming over the top and it was just backside 1-on-1, so we wanted to take advantage of that," Maghanoy said.

That score gave the Red Raiders a 28-3 lead with 5:06 left in the third quarter. Waianae got a pair of scores in the game's final minute on a 1-yard run by quarterback Ioane Kaluhiokalani Jr. and an 11-yard pass from Kaluhiokalani Jr. to Jurick Valdez.

"Kahuku is a great team," Seariders' coach Dan Matsumoto said. "They had some nice passes and they're just an awesome team. It was a nice, clean game, as far as I saw, but we just couldn't stop them when we needed to."

Waianae fell to 4-3 with the loss and will be the D1 Red's third seed. It will host Aiea, the sixth-placed team from the Blue, in the opening round of the OIA Tournament next weekend.