Thomas Yam passed for 323 yards and four touchdowns to lead Kamehameha to a 53-0 throttling of visiting Baldwin before a crowd of about 800 fans at Kunuiakea Stadium. Brien Ing | SL

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Sat, Aug 15, 2015 @ Kamehameha [ 4:30 pm ]

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Baldwin

0

Kamehameha

53

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Baldwin (8-4-0)	0	0	0	0	0
Kamehameha (5-4-0)	15	17	21	0	53

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Thomas Yam 323 yd 4 TD

Chayce Akaka 61 yd

Thomas Yam 71 yd

Samiu Oto 18 yd

Kumoku Noa 197 yd 3 TD

Kelii Kaiama 34 yd

KAPALAMA HEIGHTS — It took Thomas Yam a little more than a week to find his stride for the Kamehameha football team.

The sophomore grabbed the starting quarterback position by the reins Saturday, passing for 323 yards and four touchdowns to lead Kamehameha to a 53-0 throttling of visiting Baldwin before a crowd of about 800 fans at Kunuiakea Stadium.

The Warriors (2-0), who are ranked fifth in the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Division I Power Rankings, dominated the Bears (0-1) in every facet of the game, outgaining them 464 yards of total offense to 60.

"It's really hard to say until you watch the film," Kamehameha coach Doug Cosbie said. "I think stat-wise it's probably good, but we're just trying to get better every week. I think we're better than we were last week."

Yam, who is filling in for starter Fatu Sua-Godinet, who suffered a knee injury in last week's season-opening 33-13 win at Waianae and is expected to miss another week of action. He completed nine of 18 passes for 149 yards and a touchdown last week.

"He looked much more comfortable than he did last week," Cosbie said of Yam, who stands 6 feet, 1 inch and weights 185 pounds. "Last week he got thrown in there. I mean, he was going to play some anyways, but when Fatu hurt his knee in the second quarter, it was all on him. He had a whole week to prepare mentally and just looking into his face today he looked much more comfortable and much more focused."

Yam was the starting quarterback on the intermediate team last year.

"He'll get better every week," Cosbie said. "He just had to get comfortable playing at this level because to go from intermediate to varsity in one year it's a big jump."

By halftime Saturday, Yam had thrown for 294 yards. He attempted just one pass in the second half and finished 21-of-30 passing for the game.

"I think Boogie ran the offense a lot better in this game," Cosbie said. "We went in trying to get Boogie reps throwing. We know we've got to get him ready for the ILH, because you can't just run the ball in the ILH week after week and be successful. We know we have to be able to throw the ball. That was kind of the plan and looking at it, I think it went pretty well, but again you don't have a better idea until you watch the film."

Wide receiver Kumoku Noa led all pass catchers Saturday with eight grabs for 197 yards. He recorded touchdown passes of 61, 11 and 39 yards. Noa had seven catches for 158 yards in the first half alone.

"Moku is a heck of a football player; To me he's every bit as good as (former Punahou receiver) Kanawai, his brother," Cosbie said. "Like I told him, he just happen to be in a system where in his sophomore and junior years we just didn't have a passing quarterback, but we're throwing the ball more a little bit now, throwing it a little better and he's just a super talented kid. He just reminds me of his brother, makes everything looks easy and smooth."

The Warriors capped their opening drive — which covered 69 yards in nine plays — with a 2-yard Alema Kapoi touchdown run. They turned it over on downs on their next drive, but scored on the following two, both on Yam-to-Noa touchdown passes.

Kamehameha extended its lead to 25-0 midway through the second quarter on Adam Stack's 28-yard field goal and made it 32-0 on Yam's 6-yard scoring strike to Christopher Ah Mook Sang with 2:01 left in the first half.

Three plays into the third quarter, Yam and Noa hooked up again, this time for a 39-yard touchdown pass that was set-up by Kainalu Martin's second interception of the game one play prior.

Trever Kahunahana added a 7-yard touchdown run and Desmond Unutoa scored on a 35-yard pick-6 later in the third quarter to close out the scoring.

"I was eager to get points today for our boys, for the (defensive backs)," said Unutoa, who noted that the Warriors knew little about the Bears offensively. "Coming into the game we didn't really have too much film on them so we didn't really know too much. We just knew that they ran something similar to Saint Louis, so that's what we based our defense off of."

Baldwin was held to zero rushing yards in 20 attempts and managed just five first downs in all for the game. It was just 2 of 12 on third downs. Quarterback Chayce Akaka finished 6-of-17 passing for 61 yards.

"The defense is playing pretty well," Cosbie said. "When you've got seven returners from last year on the defense that's to be expected, but we still lose contain too much and it's more little disciplined things that we need to get better at."

It was the season opener for the Bears, who went 3-6 last year, and the head coaching debut of Pohai Lee, who took over for Keneke Pacheco during the offseason.

Baldwin returned to Maui Saturday night and will host Southern California-powerhouse Mission Viejo Friday at War Memorial Stadium.

Kamehameha will travel to the Big Island next week and close out its non-league schedule against Hilo Friday night at Francis Wong Stadium.