Iolani faces off with Damien in a key ILH Division I game Saturday afternoon at Aloha Stadium. CJ Caraang | SL

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First place in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu's Division I standings will be at stake when No. 10 Iolani and No. 12 Damien meet on the turf at Aloha Stadium this weekend.

The Raiders (3-2 overall, 2-1 league) and the Monarchs (3-1, 3-0) will play in the middle game of an ILH tripleheader in Halawa Saturday.

The game will follow a D2 game between Saint Francis (4-0, 3-0) and PAC-5 (2-1) at 2 p.m. and precede an Open Division game between No. 1 Saint Louis (3-0, 2-0) and No. 3 Punahou (3-1) at 7:30 p.m.

Damien enters the weekend with a one game lead on Iolani with five weeks of regular season play remaining.

A win would give the Monarchs a two-game lead in the standings, while a win by the Raiders would even the teams at 3-1 but give them the head-to-head tiebreaker.

"We don't want to give our kids more pressure than there already is, but it's the one ILH game we get to play and for me, it's a huge rivalry game for us," Damien  Eddie Klaneski said.

"Iolani has been the team to beat in the Division II — or now Division I — level for the past 15 years. Last year we finally got over the hump of beating them, but that doesn't mean anything now. This game is huge in the sense that it'll give us a little cushion in the ILH standings, but it also gives us that head-to-head (advantage), so to win this game would be huge," Klaneski said. "It's just a huge game in every aspect and it's not just another game; It's the most important game because it's the next game and obviously each game is important, but I think it's a huge game from any aspect, any way you look at it or break it down."

The Monarchs opened the season with back-to-back wins over Radford and Nanakuli before suffering a road loss to Mount Spokane, 42-14, in a game that was played at Whitworth University's Pine Bowl.

Klaneski credited Mount Spokane's offensive efficiency, but also said his defense was out of sorts that day.

"We didn't play as fast as we normally play, we didn't tackle very well, we gave up huge plays when we don't normally do that, but credit Mount Spokane, they executed on their end and got a bunch of big plays," Klaneski said. "We weren't able to answer the bell in the beginning. We had a whole bunch of yardage on offense, but we had tons of penalties and we just couldn't convert on certain downs, but we learned from that."

After being torched for 504 yards of total offense in the loss, the Monarchs limited Waipahu to 261 and forced a couple of interceptions in last Friday's down-to-the-wire 13-10 win at Masa Yonamine Athletic Complex.

"That was huge. We had a really short week and we barely had any time to practice, but we had a real good game plan going into the game. We still struggled with penalties and things where we shot ourselves int he foot, so we've got to clean up those things," Klaneski said.

River Iaea scored the game-winning touchdown on a 1-yard run with three seconds left in the game.

"We were able to play tough defense and we finished the game strong, but we also had some breaks here and there, got some turnovers, made some crucial stops in critical situations and we were able to get out of there with a win," Klaneski said.

Meanwhile, their opponent Saturday is looking to bounce back with a much-needed victory after suffering back-to-back losses.

Following a 3-0 start to the season, Iolani dropped a tough 7-0 decision against Clackamas (Ore.) in a non-league game two weeks ago, before dropping their first league loss in a 31-20 defeat at Leilehua last Saturday.

Raiders coach Wendell Look said his team learned key lessons from both games.

"The loss against Clackamas was a tough loss, but from that hopefully we learned that even though you're not having your best game, especially turnover-wise, you gotta find ways to get the job done and so that's what our emphasis was coming out of that one, but I thought defensively we played really well against them," Look said.

Against the Mules last weekend, Iolani failed to hold on to a 13-7 halftime lead and were outscored 24-7 in the second half.

"After that game we talked about how we've got to go things that made us successful early. We looked at the film and defensively we didn't tackle very well as a team. We were relying on one guy to make the play and everybody was assuming that one guy would make the play and we didn't play team defense," said Look, whose team was gashed for 225 rushing yards and three touchdowns by Leilehua running back James McGary.

"Granted that Leilehua runner is a very crafty kind of runner and he's very smart in the way he ran. Obviously he was strong and had some speed and put those three things together and it made for a long night for us," said Look, who also lamented his team's numerous penalties.

"Offensively we shot ourselves in the foot again with penalties. That's the first game in a long time that we've had that many penalties called against us and we put ourselves in bad situations — second-and-long, third-and-long — you go from the red zone and then you're back to the 50-yard line, we're not built offensively to be like that. We have to be very efficient and smart in how we play and we didn't do that that night, so those are the things that we take away from those two losses," Look said.

Despite the circumstances, Look is hoping his team will approach Saturday's showdown against the Monarchs like any other game.

"Every game is important for us and we don't put more emphasis on one game to another," Look said. "I mean, this is the next game on the schedule. We are coming off of two losses, so we have to try and get our confidence back and get back in the winning column. Damien is undefeated in Hawaii so they're playing with a tremendous amount of confidence, so hopefully we can get a good matchup going."

Kickoff between the Monarchs and Raiders is scheduled for approximately 4:45 p.m.