Konawaena loses defensive battle 10-7 in OT to Kapaʻa in state Division I football championship

The Kapa’a High School football team’s defense showed up when it mattered most in Saturday night’s First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Division I championship game against Konawaena at John Kauinana Stadium at Mililani High School.

Kapaʻa survived a defensive slugfest to beat Konawaena of the Big Island 10-7 in overtime to claim the Kauaʻi Interscholastic Federation’s first Division I football state crown.

In the semifinals eight days earlier, Kapa’a surrendered 485 yards in a 55-33 win over Damien.

“I don’t even know what to say right now, except that these kids deserve it,” Kapa’a head coach Mike Tresler said after winning the championship in a game that was scoreless through three quarters. “They worked their butts off, they worked hard, never complained, they put in the effort. My football family of coaches coached them up, so I give them all the credit.”

Kapa’a (9-2) gained just 132 yards on offense on 53 plays and had four turnovers, but the Warriors scored on a 50-yard punt return by Nash Burkart 19 seconds into the fourth quarter and then won the game on Micah Rapozo’s 33-yard field goal in overtime. A week earlier, the Warriors offense piled up 396 yards.

Nainoa Simmons led the Kapa’a offense with 22 carries for 66 yards rushing and Ryan Peters had 11 tackles to lead the defense.

The Wildcats (10-3) tied the championship game on Hercules Nahale’s 2-yard touchdown run with 4:09 to play in regulation and had 324 yards of offense on Saturday night, but committed three turnovers.

“Both defenses played great,” Konawaena coach Brad Uemoto said. “We couldn’t get nothing moving offensively. I mean, we had spurts and then we just couldn’t finish drives.”

Tresler was extra thankful for the win on Thanksgiving weekend.

“All I want to do is thank my family and my wife and the kids for the opportunity to spend time coaching these wonderful kids, all the support in the community,” he said. “These kids are amazing, absolutely amazing. What a defensive battle between two good offensive teams, man.”

Tresler was somewhat dumbfounded by the defensive battle that developed Saturday night. Konawaena had 469 yards of offense in its 45-20 win over Leilehua in the semifinals.

“Yeah, absolutely, two high-scoring offenses and who would have thought, right?” Tresler said. “Who would have thought it came down to us running our big package offenses and that’s my kind of game. I knew if we could kick them deep, keep them down from scoring, we would have a chance. We didn’t do that exactly, but I think we did enough.”

Tresler added: “Defense and special teams win championships and we proved it here tonight, for sure. … Love our defense. They played fabulous.”

The final night of the high school football season featured three of the four teams in the Division I and II state championship games coming from Neighbor Islands. Kamehameha Maui beat Kaiser 37-14 for the D-II state title before the Kapa’a-Konawaena clash.

Kapa’a won the state Division II title in 2021 and Waimea won the last two D-II state crowns. Konawaena won the 2022 D-I state crown.

“That speaks volumes,” Tresler said. “We don’t need to say any more. All the D-II championships on Kauai and now D-I. Kona, Maui, we can play a good brand of football and quality football.”

Uemoto said he was proud of his team in the end of the classic, back-and-forth defensive battle. Keenan Alani passed for 241 yards, but was intercepted twice for Konawaena. Elias Malapit had seven tackles to lead the Konawaena defense.

“Defensively, man, our defense played well all year,” Uemoto said. “Sometimes we’re noted as going to wind up for offense, but the underlying character to our team is our defense, and we showed it tonight.”

Uemoto agreed with Tresler that the Neighbor Islands are showing growing strength on the gridiron.

In the Open Division championship game Friday night in Manoa, Saint Louis beat Kahuku 17-10 for the title.

“I think Neighbor Island teams are definitely catching up with Oʻahu teams,” Uemoto said. “I think sometimes just venturing out in the preseason and starting to face different competition and knowing that we can play with Oʻahu schools, it’s just confidence. Outer Island teams have a different level of pride and playing for their community. And that’s something that we’ve seen in Kapaʻa coming into this game.

“We know they’re a prideful team just like us. They’re going to play tough for their community. And we knew that the emotions within the game was going to be tough. Anyway, that was displayed tonight with all three Neighbor Island teams.”