Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Fri, Nov 18, 2016 @ Aloha Stadium [ 4:30 pm ]

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Lahainaluna

21

Kapaa

14

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Lahainaluna (9-4-0)	0	14	7	0	21
Kapaa (8-2-0)	0	0	7	7	14

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Teili Fonua 145 yd 1 TD

Etuati Storer 41 yd

Leighton Moniz 50 yd

Unaloto Pahulu 34 yd

Gabe Keener 88 yd 1 TD

Siale Hafoka 39 yd

The story of the 2016 Lahainaluna football team is one of resiliency, determination, hard work and triumph.

And if you ask Garret Tihada, there was definitely some luck involved as well.

After years of disappointment and heartbreak, the Lunas finally laid claim to their first state football championship in school history when they overcame the odds to win the Division II crown in 2016 with a 21-14 win over Kapaa in the title game of the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA State Championships.

It was the first of four consecutive D2 state titles for Lahainaluna, but this one was surely the least expected out of the bunch.

"Oh, definitely. By far it was the biggest surprise," said Tihada, then one of two co-coaches for the team.

The Lunas finished the season with a 9-4 overall record, but only after they won seven of their final eight games. In fact, they lost three of their first five games of and had three losses within Maui Interscholastic League play.

Tihada did not mince his words about his 2016 squad.

"We were actually terrible," he proclaimed.

After a season-opening 29-0 win over Pearl City, Lahainaluna's offense went through a dry spell in losses to Kapaa (21-0) and Maui High (14-2) in the weeks that followed.

However, the non-league defeat at the hands of Kapaa gave the Lunas something to build upon, Tihada explained.

"Even though it was 21-0, it gave us a little bit of hope because we weren't that good that year and keeping it to 21-0 and just the way the game played out — I mean, it wasn't a blowout 21-0 — we made some mistakes and if it wasn't for a few mistakes it would have been a lot closer," Tihada said.

Although the final score was similar, the game itself was quite different from Kapaa's 24-0 win over Lahainaluna in the semifinals of the D2 state tournament a year prior.

"That was total domination," Tihada recalled of the 2015 tilt.

"We got beat in every phase of the game and it was pretty bad."

Tihada said that the loss to Maui High in the MIL opener was indicative of just how much the Lunas were struggling to find a groove offensively.

"The 14 points (the Sabers) scored were off turnovers, I believe, fumbles. The offense was responsible for every point in that game, I believe, two turnovers and we did have a safety, but we were terrible," he reiterated.

After a bye week, Lahainaluna evened its record at 2-2 overall (1-1 MIL) with a 37-0 win at Kekaulike. However, Tihada points to a 29-27 loss against Baldwin just five days later that made all the difference going forward for his team.

"That was pretty much what turned our whole season around right there. The week of that first Baldwin game we changed our entire offensive philosophy," Tihada explained.

"Again, to go back to the fact that we were so terrible that as a staff we decided to go back to all the old stuff we ran in the past and every offensive package had a different personnel grouping, so that made it real fun for the kids, fun for the coaches and we went from having 13 to 15 guys playing on offense to 20 to 25 guys on offense rotating in, so it was really good for the kids," he said.

The Lunas routinely began using four or five different players at quarterback even though "a couple of them were running backs," Tihada noted.

"It just gave the defense a little bit more to think about and it allowed our offensive guys to really concentrate on one specific job instead of thinking about the whole offense and everything involved."

Perhaps most important to the equation was the overwhelmingly positive attitudes of the players involved in the wholesale changes.

"I think at the time we were lucky because we didn't have any returning guys that were carrying the load or carrying the ball a lot in the past — it was just everybody was pretty much on the same level — so that year it was really, really easy, especially with our record not being so good and doing this it was just a lot of fun for our kids so we didn't have to manage egos that year. Really it was one of the most enjoyable coaching years for a lot of us," Tihada said.

Consequently, the Lunas won their next three games — including a 17-9 win over Maui High — before another close loss to the Bears in their second go-around, 19-13. However, they wrapped up MIL play with a 42-0 rout of Kekaulike and their 10th consecutive league D2 title.

Lahainaluna took a 6-4 record into the postseason and drew the No. 3 overall seed in the six-team D2 state tournament. That meant that it would need to win three games in three weeks on three different islands to win it all.

The top seed went to Kapaa, while Konawaena drew the No. 2 seed. All of that was just fine with Tihada and the Lunas.

"There was no disrespect or feeling of disrespect," he said in regards to the seeding. "We actually kind of felt that year that we needed to be playing (due to) the lack of experience. When you have a veteran team, they kind of understand how to deal with long breaks and byes, but that year we were grateful that we had to play in the quarterfinals, just to keep us moving."

Tihada's squad had no problems in its first round victory over Waipahu. The Lunas jumped out to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter en route to a 52-14 romp over the visiting Marauders at Wailuku's War Memorial Stadium. That win set-up a semifinal showdown against Konawaena, at the Wildcats' Julian Yates Field in Kealakekua on the Big Island.

Lahainaluna's defense put the clamps down on Konawaena's high-octane, no-huddle offense with six total takeaways — including three interceptions off of prolific quarterback Austin Ewing — to lead the way in the 28-14 win.

Senior Donavan Defang ran in two touchdowns on offense and registered one of the picks on defense, while junior Bailey Honda had another pick and recovered a fumble. Two freshmen also made key contributions in running back Joshua Tihada, who ran for 103 yards and a score on nine carries, and defensive back Derek Perez, who had the other interception off of Ewing.

Garret Tihada, Joshua's uncle, said that defensive effort against the high-scoring Wildcats provided a boost of confidence heading into the championship game.

"They were something and it's a tough environment to play at Konawaena, too," he said. "But beating a team like Konawaena — even though he was only a junior at that time, but Austin Ewing was a hell of a quarterback — so to go in there and be able to hold them to 14 points, that was incredible and I think it did give us a lot of confidence and momentum going into the Kapaa game."

And Tihada knew that his team would need all the momentum it could muster against the Warriors, who had beaten the Lunas three times over the course of the 2015 and 2016 seasons.

Tihada estimated that at least half of his players on the 2016 roster were on the 2015 team that had its' season end with the 24-0 loss to Kapaa.

"We knew exactly what they were and they were just a physical, well-coached, fundamentally-sound team and we knew that in order for us to beat them we would have to beat them with all three phases and we knew that we couldn't make mistakes — we had to be fundamentally sound ourselves," Tihada said. "And we had to get lucky also."

Fortunately for the Lunas, all of the above happened.

After a scoreless opening quarter of play, Lahainaluna got on the board with a big play on special teams. Two plays into the second quarter, Kupono Kahae-Ampong blocked a Kapaa punt that was recovered by the Lunas' Siale Hafoka and returned 23 yards for a touchdown.

Tihada credited co-coach Robert Watson for drawing it up perfectly.

"I just remember coach Watson knowing that we could get a punt block that week and he set it up. He set-up the punt block and just by the way they were set-up and the formation and their movements he was really, really confident we could get a punt block. You never know it would lead to a touchdown, but thank God it did because they stopped our offense all game long," Tihada recalled.

Kapaa went three-and-out on its ensuing possession and on the first play of its next drive, Lahainaluna struck for a 39-yard pass from Etuati Storer to Hafoka to set-up first-and-goal from the Warriors' 5-yard line.

"Even that, that's another one of those that we had to take advantage of every opportunity that we had," Tihada said of the play-action pass. "We knew they were such a great run-stopping team that if we condensed our formation a little bit, made them think that we were gonna run, did a good job with the play-action and got their corners and safeties to sit that Siale would be able to get across the field and be wide open. But we knew that if we hit it once, we probably were not gonna hit it again."

Two plays later, Kiliona Keohuloa took a reverse from Joshua Tihada on a misdirection play and turned the corner for a 7-yard TD run.

"They pretty much had no weaknesses," Garret Tihada said of Kapaa's defense. "I mean, the couple of big plays we had on them was because we had to use their discipline against them, like our touchdown run, the reverse, the only way we could do that was influence them to think we would run one way, without pulling any guards — basically we had to get our offense to go to our left, then their defense flowed that way and we reversed it back to our right, but we didn't have very many opportunities on offense to move the ball so we had to take advantage of the very few opportunities that we had."

Lahainaluna led 14-0 at halftime, but Kapaa got the ball to start the second half.

Gabe Keener returned the opening kickoff out of halftime 32 yards to the Warriors' 38-yard line — their best field position so far in the contest. However, four plays later — just as the Warriors neared midfield — Honda intercepted Kapaa quarterback Teili Fonua and returned it 55 yards down the left sideline for a Lahainaluna touchdown.

"I remember thinking that was exactly the kind of stuff we need. Other than the punt block, we've got to be able to score in other ways besides offense because they will stop us," Tihada recalled. "Without us scoring on defense and on special teams, I guarantee you we wouldn't have won that game."

After Honda's pick-six, Pablo tacked on the extra point to make it a 21-0 lead a little more than a minute into the third quarter.

However, Kapaa got on the board with a 1-yard TD run by Kapena Texeira to cap a 15-play, 90-yard drive with 6:27 left in the third. The Warriors put together another long drive — 68 yards in 11 plays — culminated by a 32-yard scoring strike from Fonua to Keener at the 7:04 mark of the fourth quarter.

Lahainaluna nearly shot itself in the foot in the closing minutes when punter Unaloto Pahulu opted to try and run for a first down on 4th-and-21 from his own 9-yard line. Pahulu was stopped three yards short of the line to gain and Kapaa regained possession at the Lunas' 27-yard line with 5:04 to play. However, after a loss of a yard on a first-down run by Leighton Moniz — Pahulu had the tackle for loss on the play — the Warriors threw three straight incompletions to turn it over on downs.

Kapaa got the ball back one last time with 13 seconds left at its own 27-yard line, but could only muster a gain of 10 yards on a short pass play before the clock ran out.

Despite being limited by the Warriors' stingy defense to just 186 yards of total offense, the Lunas hung on to win, 21-14, to finally capture their elusive first state championship. They had lost all three of their previous appearances in the D2 state final —2007, 2012 and 2014 — all to Iolani.

Tihada said this title was a long time coming, to be sure.

"We started feeling pretty bad about the fact that we have a great send-off when we drive down Lahainaluna Road when we leave for the airport and a great welcome when we come back, but all three were losses and after a while you start thinking that ‘we can't come back with a loss because our fans deserve a win, they deserve better than what they've been getting,' so it was more of a relief than anything else and I think it just gave us a little bit more confidence in the years coming."

The Lunas successfully defended their state title in 2017 with a memorable 75-69 win over Konawaena in seven overtimes. They made it three in a row in 2018 with a 34-32 win over Kapaa in the title game. The same two teams faced off in the 2019 final, with the Lunas coming away with a 21-10 victory.

Tihada stepped down from his role as co-coach following the 2018 season to spend more time with his family, including his three daughters, but was still on staff in a lesser capacity for the 2019 season.

"Last year I was there as a part-time coach," he said. "I miss the kids and of course I think anybody who coaches with a group of guys for as long as you miss the camaraderie between the coaches — that's the only two things I miss. The game itself, I'm not in love with football, but I do miss the kids and our coaches. I did see them three times a week, but it wasn't the same."

The time away from the everyday duties of a head coach allowed Tihada to shuttle his middle and youngest children to and from soccer practices (his oldest lives in Portland, Oregon).

"It's been great. Even with this COVID situation, I'm living my best life with this COVID because I get to spend a lot more family time," said Tihada, who left open the possibility for a return to full-time coaching in the near future.

"It's still up in the air," he said.