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Kalani Takase | ScoringLiveOctober 8, 2022, 12:15am
Fri, Oct 7, 2022 @ Pearl City [ 7:00 pm ]
PEARL CITY — Bobby Best ran for 135 yards and two touchdowns and Pearl City got just enough defense to hold off Waialua, 21-19, in the regular season finale for both teams Friday night.
A crowd of about 1,000 fans at Edwin "Bino" Neves Stadium saw the Chargers improve to 7-2 overall and 6-1 in league play. They will be the No. 2 seed in the four-team Oahu Interscholastic Association Division II tournament and will host third-seeded Kaiser in the semifinal round in two weeks.
The Bulldogs were eliminated from postseason contention with the loss and finished the season with a 4-5 record and 3-4 mark in league play.
Best, a 5-foot-10, 150-pound junior, averaged 5.9 yards on each of his career-high 23 carries. His 135 rushing yards also bettered his previous career-best 118 yards in last week's 17-0 win over Kalani.
It was Pearl City's third straight game without starting quarterback Trey Dacoscos, who has thrown for nearly 1,500 yards and 19 touchdowns this season. Dacoscos suffered a leg injury in a win over Kaiser on Sept. 16. Consequently, it was freshman Ikaika Torres's second consecutive start at quarterback in Dacoscos's stead.
"Bobby did a great job of running, the o-line did a great job of blocking for him and Bobby and Shaedyn (Quemado) did a great job of running the ball and taking the pressure off Ikaika," Pearl City coach Robin Kami said.
The Chargers appeared to have control of the contest after Best capped their first possession of the second half with his 8-yard touchdown run on third down. The extra point by Marcus Rodriguez gave them a 21-7 lead with eight minutes and 21 seconds left in the third quarter.
The Bulldogs came to life in the fourth quarter, however. After Zayne Kalulu recovered a Pearl City fumble, Waialua marched 74 yards in nine plays, culminated by a 22-yard touchdown pass from Tyson Apau to Jayvie Arellano. The conversion was no good to keep the score 21-13 with 10:23 to play.
Following a three-and-out by the Chargers, Apau and associates put together a 13-play drive that covered 72 yards and ended with a 1-yard TD run by Makoakai Fierro. The Bulldogs converted on a pair of fourth downs on the scoring drive on Apau's pass completion to James Zara for 20 yards and his 3-yard scramble five plays later.
On the ensuing two-point conversion, however, Fierro was stopped short of the goal line and Pearl City clung to a 21-19 lead with 5:27 left to play.
Waialua got the ball back at its own 26 yard line with 3:34 remaining, but turned it over on downs four plays later when Apau was sacked on fourth-and-1 by Dorian Payton-Sherman; it was one of his three tackles in the backfield Friday night.
"Defense, again played a real good game — they bent but they never break — and at the right time they got stops when they had to get stops on the turnover on downs and gave the offense the ball," Kami said.
Payton-Sherman got the Chargers' offense the ball back with 2:46 to play. Best picked up a couple of first downs and Pearl City was able to run out the clock to hold off the Bulldogs and hold on for the narrow win.
"Well, I knew it was going to come down to that. Every year we play Waialua, the last five years, the thing came down to the last play of the game so I expected Waialua to give it their best shot because I think that's the chance they had — they had to (beat) us and then Kaimuki gotta lose — so without going to plan B, you gotta go past (plan) A first, so they did a good job of giving it all they got," Kami said.
Kami was correct; Waialua needed a win over Pearl City, coupled with a Kalaheo win over Kaimuki Saturday night, to qualify as the No. 4 seed in the OIA tournament.
The Chargers got on the board first with Best's 1-yard TD run at the 3:46 mark of the opening quarter. The scoring play capped a 13-play, 62-yard drive that took five minutes and two seconds off the clock. The drive included a key conversion by Best on fourth-and-1 with his 6-yard run up the middle.
Waialua pulled even a few minutes later on a 33-yard TD run by Apau on fourth-and-2. The touchdown, with 1:22 until the second quarter, came four plays after Zara intercepted a Torres' pass.
Zara came up with two of the three picks thrown by Torres, who finished 18-of-34 passing for 117 yards.
"I think he did a great job," Kami said of Torres. "He made some mistakes, but what do you expect for a freshman? The more games he plays, the more he's going to get better."
Torres threw an 8-yard TD pass to Zion Gella-Kaulia to put his team ahead for good with 5:05 left in the first half. The touchdown was set-up by Taohi-John Williams's interception of Apau six plays prior.
Apau left the game with about eight minutes left in the second quarter and had his shoulder pads off for the remainder of the first half. However, he returned to the game after halftime and played the entire second half. Apau finished 16-of-37 passing for 189 yards and two interceptions; He also registered 19 carries for 97 yards.
"(Apau) is a great quarterback, he's a great athlete. Once he goes around the corner, nobody can catch him — he's just too good of an athlete — so we were just trying to tell them to contain and widen a little bit out when he comes in," Kami said.
The Bulldogs posted 221 of their 313 total yards after halftime.
Waialua was just 2 of 14 on third-down conversions and 3 of 8 on fourth downs.
The Chargers tallied 157 of its 256 net yards by the intermission. Best alone accounted for 94 yards on 13 carries in the final two quarters.
Pearl City led at halftime, 14-7.
The other D2 semifinal will see top-seeded Nanakuli host fourth-seeded Kaimuki. The semifinal winners will represent the OIA in next month's state tournament.
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