Greg Yamamoto | SL

Purchase image 1 of 1

Fri, Sep 24, 2021 @ Aloha Stadium [ 7:30 pm ]

---

Kamehameha

23

Saint Louis

21

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Kamehameha (3-3-0)	3	7	13	0	23
Saint Louis (6-4-0)	0	14	7	0	21

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Alexander Bianco 344 yd 2 TD

Kealii Ah Yat 68 yd 1 TD

Trech Kekahuna 47 yd 1 TD

Noah Bartley 127 yd 1 TD

Trech Kekahuna 110 yd 1 TD

Blaze Kamoku 32 yd 1 TD

The Kamehameha football team has been getting a taste of the military life this football season — as in, hurry up and wait. 

The Warriors (0-1) , ranked fifth in the ScoringLive Power Rankings, have been through quite a lot, frankly, since a 33-28 loss to No. 4 Punahou back on Aug. 27. They had one game (against top-ranked Saint Louis) postponed and was supposed to play the Buffanblu last Saturday, but saw the Crusaders swap them out in a schedule change. 

"It's been tough; it's been tough on the kids, obviously," Kamehameha fifth-year coach Abu Maafala said via phone call Tuesday afternoon. 

Since the 2019 football season, the Warriors have played just one official game since — this fall's Interscholastic League of Honolulu opener against the Puns — as the 2020 football season never materialized; although Kamehameha, Saint Louis and Punahou did have a few scrimmages in the spring of 2021. 

"For the last two years it's been stop and go, stop and go, stop and go, but they did a great job of dealing with those emotions and dealing with that and persevering and pushing through and I'm just proud of our team that we're here and we're ready to play a football game on Friday night," Maafala said. 

Their opponent Friday will be the Crusaders (1-1 overall, 1-0 league), who came away with a 41-23 win in Saturday afternoon's matinee matchup against the Buffanblu. 

If anything, that game reinforced to Maafala what he already knew about the reigning four-time Open Division state champ. 

"Saint Louis is Saint Louis, man. They've got talented players and they run a system that they play really fast in and so it's nothing different than any other Saint Louis team that we've seen before," Maafala said. 

His focus, however, has remained largely on the preparation of his own team, which Maafala says has grown closer through the postponements and other ongoing adversity. 

"I just try to focus on us, that we can go out there and play the physical brand of football that Kamehameha is known for, minimize as many errors as we can and put our kids in the best position to win," he said. "We've got a solid football team; they've battled through all this,. They've gotten tight and gotten better throughout this and now hopefully we can display that on Friday night."

Maafala credits much of the improved leadership to team captains Evan Rau and Dwight Apao, both of whom were selected by the coaching staff.

"Those are guys that do everything right on and off the field, so our players can look at them and they do a good job of motivating and encouraging our guys, try to keep them up, along with our position group leaders, communicating with them and them helping me convey the message back to the team, it's been a team effort and we have a pretty mature team, so we're just excited to have an opportunity to play a football game on Friday," Maafala expressed. 

The Warriors were a play or two away from a win over Punahou, when the teams met at Aloha Stadium nearly four weeks ago. They took an early lead before allowing 19 straight points by the Buffanblu, but rallied with a string of 18 consecutive points to pull ahead, 25-19. The lead exchanged hands twice more in the fourth quarter, before Punahou scored the game-winning touchdown with 1:28 left to play. 

"I think that it provided us with some validity that we're on the right path," Maafala reflected. "Our guys were physical, our guys played hard and to be in that situation with an opportunity to win the football game, it also showed us areas that we need to improve and we've taken the opportunity to get better at those things and continue to build our football team."

Saint Louis coach Ron Lee got a good, hard look at the Warriors on film against the Buffanblu and has cautioned his team that it will be facing a formidable opponent come Friday. 

"This is going to be a challenge again," Lee said, "but the kids are excited that we're playing — that's the key. It's been a long, long season and we've only played two games, so they're looking forward to this one."

Lee noted the dual-threat ability of junior quarterback Kealii Ah Yat, as well as the explosiveness possessed by senior running back Noah "Sio" Bartley — who posted 240 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns against Punahou — as keys to trying to slow down the Kamehameha offense. 

"On offense they mix it up good. I think that Ah Yat is dangerous — he can throw the ball, he can run — the running back is definitely one of the best we're gonna face — he's a very, very solid runner and that offensive line blocks well," Lee dissected."

The Warriors posted 342 yards of total offense, including 235 passing and averaged 9.4 yards per pass attempt in the loss. 

"They moved the ball well against Punahou and I'm sure they got better, so that's going to be a challenge for our defense, trying to slow them down and then defensively they make you work your way down the field. They don't give up big plays and they're aggressive with lots of energy on defense, so we really have to play well," Lee said. "Everybody plays well against us. We need to lift our game up some. We've got some young guys, too, so I think that Punahou game was good for us. We'll get better, but this is going to be a challenge."

Saint Louis is coming off of a 545-yard effort in its win over Punahou Saturday. It came in a relatively-balanced effort, with 288 yards through the air and 257 rushing. Senior quarterback AJ Bianco threw for 279 yards and three TDs on 24-of-34 passing and one interception. 

While the Warriors will have waited 28 days between games by the time kickoff comes around Friday, the Crusaders will have had only six days off since Saturday's victory over the Buffanblu. 

But you won't hear any complains from Lee's bunch. 

"We played at Punahou at 3 (o'clock) in the afternoon and we haven't done that in a while, but the kids are just so happy to play," said Lee, whose team will be making its debut in Aloha Stadium. "They waited so long, so that was the big thing and going back to the stadium will be fun — different because no fans, but I think these guys are willing to play anyplace just so they have complete — but it will be fun; different without anybody in the stands, but that's OK."

Lee refuses to use the short week of preparation as a crutch. 

"We had a game plan for them a couple of weeks ago, but that got postponed, so we're just kind of tweaking that around a little bit and heck, we've practiced enough over the past four, five weeks, so I think we're in pretty good shape. We can play better, we made a lot of mistakes and found things that we've gotta correct and that's kind of what we're doing: just trying to correct our mistakes and get back to basics," Lee said. 

Lee acknowledged that if Saint Louis is to win a 37th consecutive game against an in-state foe Friday night, it will have to play well in all three phases of the game. 

"Kamehameha was impressive; they were a couple plays away from winning, from beating Punahou, so we gotta play well, we gotta be better," he said. "We came out of the game in pretty good shape, as far as injuries, but now we just gotta execute better all the way around — offense, defense, special teams — and they have an unbelievable running back, so we gotta be able to slow him down a little bit."

Kickoff between the Warriors and Crusaders is scheduled for approximately 8 p.m. Friday. The game will serve as the nightcap of an ILH doubleheader at Aloha Stadium; Kamehameha II (0-2) will meet PAC-5 (0-3) in the 5 p.m. game. 

Damien (2-2) visits No. 12 Iolani (4-0) at 3:15 p.m. Friday in the only other game this weekend. 

Kamehameha and Saint Louis are scheduled to play again on Oct. 15, also at Aloha Stadium.