No. 5 Kapolei storms past Campbell, 38-0


Kapolei's Taulia Tagovailoa passed for 259 yards and five touchdowns in the Hurricanes' shutout win over visiting Campbell. Jim Lebeau | SL

KAPOLEI — There was some turbulence early on, but Kapolei airlines was soaring high by the end of the night.

Sophomore quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa passed for five touchdowns and the Kapolei defense had four fourth-down stops to help the fifth-ranked Hurricanes fly past visiting Campbell, 38-0, Friday in a non-league contest.

In Tagovailoa's first official game playing in former University of Hawaii coach June Jones' offensive system, he was able to complete 21 of 30 passes for 259 yards without any interceptions.

"We tried to do somethings where we could rob some of the routes that (June Jones) loves, but with a quarterback like Taulia, when you give him time to do some stuff, that boy is so accurate," said Campbell coach Amosa Amosa. "He just puts it in the spot where only the receiver can get it. I tip my hat off to them."

The Hurricanes utilized short passes to start the game before opening up the playbook. Slotbacks Wyatt Perez and Jaymin Sarono thrived against the Sabers' coverage and each had multiple touchdown grabs. Perez caught six passes for 88 yards and three scores while Sarono had a game-high 10 receptions for 87 yards and two TDs.

As impressive as the Hurricanes' offense was, the Kapolei defense was just as strong with five sacks, four pass breakups and three interceptions, while holding the Sabers to just 154 total yards.

Linebacker Omar Mareko led the charge with a game-high eight tackles and defensive lineman Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa had five tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble. Tyler Vasega, Leonard Lee and Kalani Segovia each had an interception against Campbell quarterback Kawika Ulufale.

The game was well decided heading into the fourth quarter, but was a lot tighter throughout the opening period. Tagovailoa was sacked by Kishaun Ki on his first drop back of the game and had to leave the game briefly with an injury. Lee performed admirably in his stead, but tossed an interception on the Campbell side of the field that ended the Hurricanes' first drive.

Penalties also affected Kapolei in the opening quarter as it was tagged for two personal fouls on Campbell's first offensive series.

"I thought we didn't play particular well in the first half," said Kapolei coach Darren Hernandez. "We had some personal fouls that were pretty disturbing. We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times with some stupid penalties. We're going to have to clean that up and play more disciplined football."

Campbell advanced to the Kapolei 30-yard line on its opening drive, but could not convert on a 4th-and-10 situation after a strip sack by Tagovailoa-Amosa. The Hurricanes were able to take advantage of this and pieced together a 12-play drive that netted a 33-yard field goal by Beau Meyer.

The Sabers found moderate success against the Kapolei defense on their ensuing drive and even took it all the way to the Kapolei 1-yard line after converting on a fourth down situation with a pass to Tasi Faumui. However, the Hurricanes stood tall and kept the Sabers out of the end zone thanks to a tackle for loss and back-to-back sacks by Mareko and Tagovailoa-Amosa to end the drive.

"Part of it is my fault, stupid calls here and there," said Amosa. "After trying to establish our running game, we should have easily just knocked that in when we were on the 1-yard line."

After the change of possession, the Hurricanes started to open things up. Tagovailoa completed three passes over 20 yards and was able to cap the drive with a 26-yard TD pass to Perez to give Kapolei a 10-0 lead right before halftime. The sophomore signal-caller displayed his pinpoint accuracy on the scoring play, threading the needle in between the two defensive backs to Perez in the left seam.

"Taulia, I kind of ran out of superlatives for the guy," said Hernandez. "It's amazing that he's only a sophomore. He's very accurate and he throws the ball into tight windows. We're just coming on."

Kapolei began the second half much quicker than it did to start the contest.

Ulufale's first two passes after the break resulted in a pass breakup by Mareko and an interception by Lee, which gave the Hurricanes possession on the Campbell 20-yard line. One play later Tagovailoa and Perez hooked up again, this time on a corner route to make it a 17-point game 22 seconds into the third quarter.

Tagovailoa also tossed a 6-yard score to Sarono and another TD to Perez in the stanza to give Kapolei a 31-0 lead heading into the final period of play.

"We knew that (Campbell) was playing a lot of man, man free and cover 3 (coverages). Whenever they played man, we knew our slots are fast enough and quick enough to get separation at the (snap) so we just took advantage of that," said Tagovailoa. "In cover 3, we knew the seams we're going to be open. The corners (played) off so we just took advantage of the seams."

Sarono hauled in another TD pass in the fourth quarter to turn on the 35-point mercy rule with 6:43 left in the game. 



Reach Michael Lasquero at [email protected].