Punahou QB Nick Kapule (14) celebrates with WR Judd Cockett (80) after a touchdown. The duo hooked up on three scoring strikes in the Buffanblu win. John Lujan | SL

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Thu, Sep 1, 2016 @ Aloha Stadium [ 6:00 pm ]

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Punahou

56

Kamehameha

14

Final	1	2	3	4	T
Punahou (7-3-0)	14	7	21	14	56
Kamehameha (3-6-0)	7	0	0	7	14

• Pass
• Rush
• Rec

Boogie Yam 79 yd

Nick Kapule 347 yd 5 TD

Kanoa Shannon 138 yd 1 TD

Sitiveni Kaufusi 66 yd

Chris Ah Mook Sang 26 yd

Ethan Takeyama 147 yd 1 TD

HALAWA — The theme of Nick Kapule to Judd Cockett was a recurring one Thursday night.

The quarterback-receiver duo hooked up for three touchdown passes as Punahou opened the Interscholastic League of Honolulu season with a resounding 56-14 win over Kamehameha before a crowd of about 2,500 at Aloha Stadium.

The Buffanblu, who are ranked third in the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Division I Power Rankings, improved to 2-0 overall, 1-0 in the ILH.

Kapule, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound lefty, complete 17 of 31 passes for 347 yards, including 103 to Cockett, a 5-foot-11, 163-pound senior. The pair connected on touchdown passes of 4, 8 and 44 yards.

Much of Cockett's damage was done out of the slot position, against overmatched linebackers.

"We've been watching a lot of film and just going over things," said Kapule, who also threw touchdown passes of 30 and 7 yards to Eamon Brady and Ethan Takeyama, respectively. "We know Kamehameha is a great team and they blitz a lot, so we just knew Judd would be open in the middle and make plays for us."

Punahou threw for 406 of its 523 yards of total offense and finished with 26 first downs, 17 of them through the air.

"We got some protection from the o-line and the receivers are really good and the quarterbacks are throwing the ball in there and we made some great plays," Buffanblu coach Kale Ane said. "The coverage was decent. We just made some good catches and some good throws."

Takeyama notched game-highs of seven receptions for 147 yards. All four starting receivers — Cockett, Takeyama, Brady and Keala Martinson — had at least one touchdown grab.

"I've said this before, but they're my best friends and we love playing together," Kapule said of the quartet of pass-catchers. "It's just all good fun and they're great athletes — all four of them — and we have even more athletes who are great as receivers, but those four guys are special."

Less than two minutes into the game, Kapule lofted a pass over a trio of Kamehameha defensive backs and into the waiting hands of Brady for a 30-yard score. A little more than two minutes later, Cockett got behind a linebacker before securing a 4-yard TD pass from Kapule to quickly make it a 14-0 Punahou lead.

The Warriors cut it to 14-7 after one quarter on Kanoa Shannon's 1-yard run, but the Buffanblu went on to score 28 consecutive points, including 21 third-quarter points.

Cockett's second touchdown came on a fourth-and-goal from the Kamehameha 8-yard line just 54 seconds into the second quarter. That capped an 11-play, 91-yard drive that took just under two minutes of game time.

Kapule found Cockett wide open for a 44-yard touchdown to cap Punahou's first drive of the second half. He released the pass just before taking a hit from an oncoming Kamehameha defender.

"Eamon Brady set a great pick on that crossing route, so that one kind of goes to him — I didn't really have to do much — and it was a good ball by Nick," Cockett said.

Ane said the slotback-on-linebacker mismatch was one the Buffanblu wanted to exploit.

"It's always hard to cover slots and they had to decide whether they wanted to put pressure or cover — and you want to do both — so we tried to take advantage as much as possible; Protection is always key," Ane said.

Kapule was not intercepted and sacked just once. His final scoring strike was a 7-yard quick slant to Takeyama that gave his team a 42-7 lead after three quarters.

Reserve quarterback Stephen Barber hit Martinson for a 10-yard TD pass midway through the third quarter on another fourth-and-goal play. Martinson tipped the pass from Barber over a Kamehameha defender to himself in the right front corner of the end zone.

Barber's 3-yard keeper — on yet another fourth-and-goal — on a read-option play made it 49-14 with 6:19 left to play. Nui Adolpho closed out the scoring with a 12-yard run late in the game.

Kamehameha's only other score came early in the fourth quarter on Thomas Yam's 5-yard quarterback draw that cut the deficit to 42-14.

Yam (8-of-16 passing) and backup Justice Young (1 of 6) combined for just 72 passing yards. Shannon rushed for a game-high 138 yards on 25 carries for the sixth-ranked Warriors (1-2 overall, 0-1 ILH), who finished with 277 yards of total offense.

Linebacker Logan Williams led the defensive effort for Punahou with a game-high eight tackles, including two sacks.

Kamehameha was just 2 of 11 on third downs and penalized 14 times for 147 yards, including seven personal fouls.