Wong Powers Waiakea Past Kea`au

Waiakea will really miss Kean Wong next week.

The University of Hawai`i baseball commit will miss next week’s game against Hilo to a baseball clinic, but he showed how much he is worth to his team with a four-touchdown performance that lifted Waiakea to a 25-8 victory over Kea`au Friday night at Wong Stadium.

The senior quarterback sat through most of the first series of the game because of missing a practice due to illness, according to head coach Fred Lau. He entered the game on fourth down to punt the football away, but after a Kea`au player made contact with him to give the Warriors a first down, Wong stayed in the game and immediately fired two consecutive complete passes. The second was a 16-yard scramble-and-strike to Richard Kuntemeyer in the short left corner of the end zone that gave Waiakea a 7-0 lead with 8:49 to play in the opening quarter.

Later in the quarter, Waiakea defender Keoni Santiago forced a fumble from Cougars quarterback Pono Quihano-Makaweo and ran it back to the one-yard line. Moments later, Wong ran it in from that distance, giving Waiakea a 13-0 lead with 2:05 remaining in the quarter. Kiko missed the extra point.

Waiakea (3-5, 2-3 BIIF) kept the pressure on with another big play from Wong. After evading pressure from the pocket, he rolled to his left and threw on the run to Dayton Kiko, who ran in a 28-yard touchdown pass with 4:09 remaining in the first half. A bad snap on the extra point try kept the score at 19-0.

Kea`au (0-7, 0-5) gave themselves a chance to get back into the game with their opening drive to start the second half. After the opening kickoff was returned into Waiakea territory, the Cougars ground game got its best result of the night, a 13-yard touchdown from Raskassa Johnson. Quihano-Makaweo’s two-point conversion run cut the Waiakea lead to 19-8 with 8:04 remaining in the third quarter.

The Warriors put the game away in the fourth quarter with a key fourth-down conversion. Facing a fourth-and-one, Wong executed a simple quarterback sneak and ran it 38 yards to paydirt to put the game out of reach. Kiko missed another extra point, but Waiakea had opened up a 25-8 lead with 3:52 remaining in the game.

Wong was the game’s leading passer, completing seven of 18 passes for 121 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception. Three of Wong’s completions were to Kiko for 67 yards, leading the team in both categories.Wong also led the Warriors with 81 yards rushing and two touchdowns on 11 carries.

Kea`au moved the ball well on offense, led by Johnson’s 85 yards on the ground. To be expected, however, the passing game did not gain a lot of traction out of the wishbone offense. Quihano-Makaweo completed two-of-10 passes for 17 yards. Johnson finished with 85 yards rushing on 8 carries, and Matthew Shimabukuro and Nathan Wong caught each of Quihano-Makaweo’s two completions.

For the second straight week, penalties were a thorn in the Cougars’ side. After being penalized 11 times last week, they were flagged 15 times for 142 yards. They weren’t the only ones getting picked on by tough officiating. The Warriors were penalized 13 times for 93 yards.

With the loss, Kea`au clinched the fourth seed in the upcoming BIIF Division I football tournament. That ensures that they will be on the road for the entire postseason. They will travel to the tournament’s number one seed, which hasn’t been determined yet.

Kea`au 0 0 8 0 – 8

Waiakea 13 6 0 6 – 25

Scoring Summary

1st (8:49) – WAIAKEA: Kean Wong 16 yard TD pass to Richard Kuntemeyer (Kiko XPT good)

1st (2:05) – WAIAKEA: Kean Wong 1 yd TD run (Kiko XPT no good)

2nd (4:09) – WAIAKEA: Kean Wong 28 yd TD pass to Dayton Kiko (2-PT run failed)

3rd (8:04) – KEA`AU: Raskassa Johnson 13 yd TD run (Quihano-Makaweo 2-PT run good)

4th (3:52) – WAIAKEA: Kean Wong 38 yd TD run (Kiko XPT no good)

Konawaena 49, Honoka`a 10

After trailing 10-0 following in one quarter, the Konawaena Wildcats (5-4, 5-1) responded by putting up 49 unanswered points to defeat Honoka`a (5-3, 4-2) in a road test. Quarterback Lii Karratti threw four touchdown passes, all of them in the second quarter, to give the Wildcats separation.

Konawaena 0 34 7 8 – 49

Honoka`a 10 0 0 0 – 10