Ieke Seei-Cleveland scored on a 1-yard run to help the Bulldogs' beat Pearl City Friday night. CJ Caraang | SL

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Fri, Oct 7, 2016 @ Pearl City [ 7:30 pm ]

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Kaimuki

20

Pearl City

17

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Kaimuki (5-4-0)	7	7	6	0	20
Pearl City (5-4-0)	0	11	6	0	17

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Kekainalu Simon 196 yd 1 TD

Jordan Solomon 155 yd

Charles Freitas 31 yd

Ieke Seei-Cleveland 39 yd 1 TD

Calvin Mock 68 yd 1 TD

Tyace Sarcedo-Drennon 55 yd

PEARL CITY — The home team celebrated a lot of things Friday night — except a win.

Tenth-ranked Kaimuki spoiled No. 3 Pearl City's homecoming and senior game with a 20-17 win at the newly-renovated Bino Neves Stadium in its final Oahu Interscholastic Association Division II regular season game of the year.

Daniel Nguyen had the game-sealing interception with 1:24 left in regulation to help the Bulldogs improve to 5-3 and 5-2 in league play. He also made two pass breakups and scored on a 10-yard run to give the Bulldogs a 14-3 lead midway through the second quarter.

"We came in with one goal, and that was to ‘show up,'" said Nguyen, who finished with four tackles. "That was our motto this whole week. All of our hard work in practice finally paid off, especially in this game against Pearl City. It's definitely a big win for us."

Kaimuki will lock up one of the league's four playoff berths if Kalani (3-2) or Waialua (3-2) loses one of their final two regular season games. However, the playoff seeding will be determined by a coin flip should both teams close out the season with back-to-back wins, forcing a five-way tie for first place in the league standings.

"We can only just wait and see what happens," said Kaimuki second-year coach David Tautofi. "This is a good way to go into the bye week. Right now we got a foot up so we can't really complain about that. I'd rather have walked away with a victory than not doing so."

The Chargers, who would have clinched a playoff spot with a win over the Bulldogs, dropped its first OIA game of the year and dropped to 5-2 and 5-1.

Pearl City was its own worse enemy in the contest. The Chargers were flagged 16 times which resulted in a loss of 106 yards.

"It's the first time we've had this much penalties in a game," said Pearl City coach Robin Kami. "Usually we just have one or two, but today was just unusual. I'm not sure if we was over-excited, but no excuse, Kaimuki still played a great game and my hats go off to them."

Still, the Chargers had their chances. Pearl City turned it over on downs on a fake field goal attempt, instead of taking the points to tie the game at 20 with 3:49 left in regulation. Zameer Khan, who kicked a 35-yard field goal in the second quarter, was in for a 26-yard attempt before the Chargers motioned Isaiah Asinsin out wide before the play began. Holder Kasey Kikuyama tried to get the ball to Asinsin, but failed to convert the pass.

Senior linebacker Kasey Villalon and Kikuyama also dropped two potential Jordan Solomon interceptions in the second half inside Kaimuki territory that could have gone for six points. 

"We had our chances, we just didn't follow through," said Kami.

With several players going both ways, the Bulldogs kept things grounded on offense with 45 run plays to 20 attempts by Solomon. Kaimuki gained just 85 yards rushing, but was able to control the tempo in its favor.

"It was kind of the game plan today to keep it on the ground," said Tautofi. "We didn't show too much last week against Waipahu so that was an advantage for us and we were able to polish a lot of things up."

The Bulldogs scored first after forcing a three-and-out on Pearl City's first drive. Solomon completed two passes on fourth down, a 25-yarder to Saburban Castillo and a 18-yarder to Tyace Sarcedo-Drennon, to help set up Ieke Seei-Cleveland's 1-yard TD run.

Pearl City cornerback Brody Padilla recovered a backwards Solomon pass late in the first quarter to set up the home team's first score of the game. The Chargers recycled the turnover into Khan's 35-yard boot.

The home team scored its first TD of the game on a 70-yard pump-and-go between Kekainalu Simon and Calvin Mock down the left sideline. Two Kaimuki penalties on the PAT set up Asinsin's sneak on the 2-point conversion to make it a 14-11 game at the half.

Kaimuki's final score of the game was set up by Andreiss Toussaint's interception on Simon, which was returned to the Pearl City 31 and advanced to the 16 after a Charger penalty. Solomon's 1-yard sneak with 5:22 made it a 20-11 game. The PAT was blocked.

An onside kick attempt on the ensuing kickoff did not travel 10 yards, giving Pearl City possession on the Bulldogs' 47-yard line. Joe Maneafaiga came in at running back and scored on a 12-yard run for the final points of the game. The Chargers botched the snap on the PAT and were forced to make something out of nothing to leave the score at 20-17.

Pearl City travels to Waialua next Friday to close out the regular season.