Damien cruises through St. Thomas More

Amo Sulu (right) found paydirt four times and Tino Atonio (left) scored once to help the Monarchs cruise through St. Thomas More Collegiate. CJ Caraang | SL

KALIHI — Midseason non-league games can be tough to juggle, but the Monarchs were firing on all cylinders as Damien cruised through St. Thomas More Collegiate, 56-14, Saturday evening at Farrington's Edward 'Skippa' Diaz Stadium at Kusunoki Field.

Hailing from Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, the Knights made the trip to the islands for a tune up before opening their league play next week.

"It's hard, we're playing a team from Canada, we don't really know much about them," Damien coach Eddie Klaneski said. "But as long as on our side we were executing, that was the main thing."

Damien opened the game with possession on offense but went three and out. After forcing a quick turnover on downs, the Monarchs proceeded to find the end zone on three of their next four drives of the first quarter to take a 19-0 lead.

STMC responded to make it a 19-7 deficit early in the second period, and after trading intecreptons, Damien answered back with touchdown runs of 30 and 11 yards from running back Amo Sulu to close out the first half with a 32-7 lead. Sulu finished with 85 yards and three TDs on the ground from 11 carries. He also had a 74-yard touchdown reception scamper in the first quarter on a screen pass to the right side.

Heading into the second half, Damien became lenient with subbing in reserves, which included splitting snaps behind center between junior Duke Hoohuli and sophomore Logan Lacio in place of starter Jake Holtz.

"It kind of panned out as we wanted to. We were able to get up early and get a lot of guys in tonight and got to see some quality reps for our second and third — especially at quarterback and running back and some positions," Klaneski said. "It was good to see our young kids get some opportunities and make a lot of big plays. It's exciting."

Junior Chance Maghinay Santos got to carry the rock in the second half and took five-consecutive carries to finish with a nine-yard dash into the end zone to start the 35-point running clock mercy rule.

"We wanted to just play ball and we did," Sulu said. "We started off slow in the first quarter but we picked everything up as we were going through it. God just had a plan for us and we just wanted to drive it forward."

Sulu also had a 67-yard reception to bring his two-catch total to 141 yards on the evening.

Junior Nick Osho led the Knights with 113 yards and one TD on 12 carries and added four tackles.

Damien improves to 4-0 overall and will resume league play at Castle (1-2 overall) next Friday.

Following the conclusion of Saturday's competition, Hawaii schools are now 7-4 against out-of-state teams in 2019.

Reach Spencer Honda at [email protected].