CJ Caraang | SL

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Fri, Nov 4, 2016 @ Keaau [ 7:00 pm ]

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Leilehua

26

Hilo

25

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Leilehua (5-8-0)	0	13	0	13	26
Hilo (8-2-0)	12	3	10	0	25

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Kaale Tiogangco 88 yd

Konapiliahi Andres 167 yd 2 TD

Kahale Huddleston 216 yd 2 TD

Konapiliahi Andres 59 yd 1 TD

Kahale Huddleston 38 yd

Kawai Phifer 97 yd 1 TD

KEAAU, Hawaii — Leilehua will live to play another day.

Konapiliahi Andres accounted for three touchdowns to lift Leilehua to a thrilling come-from-behind 26-25 win over top-seeded Hilo in a first round game of the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Division I Football State Championships at Keaau High School Friday night.

The Mules (5-7) rallied from a 15-0 first-half deficit by scoring 26 points in the final three quarters to advance to play Mililani in a semifinal at Aloha Stadium next Saturday.

The four-time Big Island Interscholastic Federation champion Vikings (8-2) saw their eight-game win streak snapped to end their season.

"That's the thing about the Mules: we're resilient," Leilehua coach Nolan Tokuda said. "These guys will make their mistakes, but just keep fighting through. We always talk about ‘finish,' and it starts from our early-season training. It starts from our conditioning and every day it's always ‘finish,' so I'm just so proud of these guys."

Hilo held a 25-13 lead entering the fourth quarter, but was shutout the rest of the way.

Less than two minutes into the final period, Andres capped a nine-play, 94-yard drive with his 39-yard touchdown pass to Kawai Phifer, who got behind his defender along the right sideline.

"Right off the line he beat the (defensive back)," Andres said of Phifer. "He was three yards behind him and I just threw it up there and let him do the rest."

Akoni Tom-Makue's ensuing PAT cut the Vikings' lead to 25-20 with 10:26 left in the game.

The Mules forced a turnover on downs on Hilo's next possession after Donovan Ugalino dropped quarterback Kaale Tiogangco for a 3-yard loss on a fourth-and-4 run.

Four plays later, Andres powered his way into the end zone for a 7-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw off left tackle to give his team its first and only lead of the night.

"I just told myself that I can't give on up my brothers," said Andres, a senior quarterback. "They do too much in practice, we all put too much effort in gassers, I couldn't just give up and let them down."

The drive started with runs of 14 and 16 yards by Andres, but he was forced to the sideline after the second play of the drive with an injury.

"The guy hit me in my knee," said Andres, who re-entered after one play. "It was just a stinger, but oh my God, I thought it was something broken."

Leilehua tried to run in the two-point conversion to make it a three-point lead, but failed.

The Vikings drove from their own 20 all the way to the Leilehua 22 before Kalei Tolentino-Perry lined up a a 39-yard field goal for the would-be go-ahead score. However, after each team called a timeout, Leilehua's Damion Scandrick came off the right edge to block the kick.

"When (Hilo) called a timeout, the coach that sets up all the blocks for us, he told me I needed to dig deep, so I did what I had to do what I to do to stop them from scoring," said Scandrick, a senior defensive back."I got a big help from my linebacker, Pookela (Chun). He picked up two blocks for me to get that."

It was an especially sweet night for Scandrick, who transferred from Keaau to Leilehua late in the summer.

"I don't know if there's a better story," Tokuda said. "It's just so sweet for him to come back on this field that he's been playing here on for three years. To have to leave his senior year and have to bond with a new team and a new family in Wahiawa and for him to come up big like that, I mean, what can you say? What a blessing to have him on our team."

Hilo scored just one minute into the game on Kyan Miyasato's 15-yard scramble. It stretched its lead to 15-0 by early in the second quarter following a 5-yard Huddleton TD run and a 28-yard Tolentino-Perry field goal.

"In the first half I had a lot of mistakes, but I had my great, awesome teammates in the locker room at halftime and what they did was tell me, ‘Do what you do in practice and play hard. Dig deep,' said Andres, "We came back in the second half and the coaches adjusted, the defense adjusted, we stopped that run, we stopped the pass and the offense started executing."

Leilehua cut into the Hilo lead with a pair of second-quarter touchdowns. Andres hit Jerome Holliday for a 10-yard score and following Jacob Schmidt's interception off Miyasato, Kawika Anderson Seumanutafa-Bryant finished off a eight-play, 66-yard drive with his 1-yard plunge into the end zone. That made the score, 15-13, in favor of the Vikings at the intermission.

Tolentino-Perry booted a 41-yard field goal and Huddleston scored on a 75-yard run late in the third quarter to give Hilo a 25-13 lead.

"These past two weeks we've just been working hard," said an emotional Andres. "Every day coach would tell us that we had to dig deep if we don't want to end this season and every day we would come to an agreement that we were not going to turn our pads in."

Andres finished with 168 yards on 15-of-24 passing. Phifer led all players with five receptions for 97 yards.

Huddleston rushed for a game-high 216 yards on 16 carries to lead the Vikings. Kashtian Ioane Sadlon made nine tackles to lead the defense.

"Hats off to Hilo. They're the Big Island champion for a reason," Tokuda said. "They came to fight, they came to play, we just made one more play than them, that's what it came down to."

Hilo was seeking to become the first BIIF team to win a game in the 17-plus year history of the Division I state tournament. With Waiakea's 48-0 loss to Campbell Friday night, the league dropped to 0-19 all-time in D1 state tournament games.