Kamehameha-Hawaii Head Coach Dan Lyons coached from the press box Friday night to get a better look at what his offense is doing on the field.
He gave up his front row seat to the action, but got to see the mastery of quarterback Micah Kanehailua from a much broader perspective.
Kanehailua completed 22 of 37 passes for 357 yards and five touchdowns as the Warriors defeated Kealakeha 35-21 late Friday night at Paiea Stadium.
“I thought Micah was spot on,” said Lyons, who also serves as the team’s Offensive Coordinator. Lyons noted that the 495 yards of total offense his team put up against the Waveriders would’ve been a lot more if not for a few key drops in the opening quarter.
“I thought things worked pretty well tonight,” Lyons said. “I thought our offense, we struggled in the first quarter…I thought the second half was a little more conducive to the way the game was played.”
Kanehailua and the Kamehameha-Hawai`i offense struck first midway through the first quarter, thanks to a five-play, 60-yard drive capped off by a three-yard touchdown completion to Alapaki Iaea. Kanehailua went 3-for-3 on the drive, finding three different receivers, and the Warriors took a 7-0 lead with 4:34 remaining in the first.
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Kealakehe’s defense would try to turn the game around. After Joseph Kaopua recovered a fumble by Kanehailua at the 25-yard line, the Waveriders used the short field position to get on the board. Kaimi Wilson found Riggs Kurashige in the end zone for an 11-yard touchdown strike, tying the game at 7-7 early in the second quarter.
Kealakehe (2-2 overall, 2-1 Big Island Interscholastic Federation) got great field position on its next drive, starting at its own 45 yard line, and rattled off a 10-play, 55-yard drive, capped off by Kurashige’s one-yard touchdown run to put the Waveriders ahead 14-7.
Kamehameha-Hawai`i (2-1, 2-1) grabbed momentum right back late in the first half as Kanehailua found Bayley Manliguis in the back left corner of the end zone for a six-yard touchdown completion to tie the game with 3:19 left in the half.
On the Warriors’ next possession, Kanehailua found three different receivers on three different pass plays, finishing with a second scoring hook-up to Iaea from 32 yards out to put the Warriors ahead 21-14 with 1:04 on the second quarter clock.
Iaea had his most productive game of the season, hauling in five passes for 106 yards and two scores.
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It nearly got worse, as Kamehameha-Hawai`i recovered the ensuing kickoff and had an opportunity to kick a 21-yard field goal, but Preston Kalai’s line drive went wide left to keep the score at 21-14 heading into the locker room.
While Kealakehe’s offense, managing a total of negative-three yards in the third quarter, failed to get into a groove, the Warriors’ continued theirs. On their first drive of the half, Kanehailua found Caleb Baptiste for a 13-yard touchdown strike, capping off an 11-play, 91-yard drive to extend the lead to 27-14 with eight minutes remaining in the third quarter.
Before the end of the third quarter, Kamehameha-Hawai`i found the end zone again. Kanehailua found Iaea for a 63 yard completion to start a five-play drive from the nine yard line. Three plays later, Grant Shiroma hauled in a touchdown pass from 20 yards away to go ahead 35-14 with :31 seconds left in the third.
The Waveriders started the fourth quarter with Sequoia Iona at quarterback, and Iona used his legs to rattle off a 26-yard run early in his first drive. He was sacked twice to end the drive, but he came back on the field later and capitalized on short field to find Kurashige for a 29-yard touchdown completion to cut the Warriors’ lead to 35-21 with 5:26 remaining.
Kurashige was a bright spot for Kealakehe. He caught six passes for 71 yards and two touchdowns and also added a touchdown run.
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Kamehameha-Hawai`i racked up 495 yards of total offense. Chase Peneku played a part on the ground in supporting Kanehailua’s passing effort. The senior running back gained 67 yards on 16 carries.
Kealakehe, however, only managed 199 yards on offense. Wilson was 11-for-27 passing for 116 yards and a touchdown.
Bus Breakdowns Force Delay
The varsity game kicked off at 8:10 after a pair of bus malfunctions forced the junior varsity game to start at 5:40, well after the 5:00 scheduled kick.
Kealakehe Interim Athletic Director Alan Vogt said that the junior varsity bus first broke down on its way up the Daniel K. Inouye Highway. A blown engine forced the team to be stranded for approximately 45 minutes.
A second bus arrived, and on its way down the highway, its breaks gave out, creating a scary situation along the winding roads near Kaumana. The team was stranded for another 20 minutes before they were finally able to arrive at the Kamehameha-Hawai`i campus around 5:00 p.m
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