Roosevelt roughs up Kaiser to repeat as OIA Division II champs

Brian Bautista | SL

The OIA Division II plaque is staying in Makiki.

Roosevelt trailed early before scoring the final 34 points of the contest to dismantle Kaiser, 34-3, claiming a second straight league title.

The steady gusts at Edward 'Skippa' Diaz Stadium at Kusunoki Field should have favored the Cougars, whose three-headed rushing attack of Dillion Reis, Brady Kim, and Aiden Leong has racked up over 1500 yards and 20 touchdowns on their way to the OIA title game.

However, Roosevelt proved to be more than ready to stonewall Kaiser's dominant ground game. According to junior linebacker Ezekiel Soon, it all started in the film room.

"That was our game plan. We saw they were a decent running team, so we wanted to stack the box, take that away from them, and make them one-dimensional."

While Soon and fellow linebacker Taimane Souza-Fautanu lived in the Kaiser backfield, combining for 19 tackles (six for a loss) on the way to holding the Cougars to just 80 yards rushing on the day, make no mistake — it was brilliant corner play that allowed the Rough Riders' front seven to shine.

Outside corner duo Victor Silva and Kona Siamani were seen playing one-on-one press coverage on almost every snap. Forget deep safety help; on most plays, Roosevelt didn't have a defender past five yards of the line-of-scrimmage — a true testament to their dominance.

Lockdown coverage on the outside gave the Rough Riders enough confidence to put nine defenders in the box on every snap, which meant that running was a lost cause.

The result: a fumble recovery on the Roosevelt five-yard line leading to Kaiser's only three points of the game.

Immediately after that turnover opened the scoring, Roosevelt set the tone for what would be the offensive story of the night.

A 13 yard run by junior quarterback Ioane Kamanao, a 12 yard screen play to senior wideout Keawe Davis, a 28 yard jump ball corralled by junior receiver Jahsiah Souza-Armstead, who then caught a back shoulder fade in the endzone.

It was 7-3 in a flash, and Roosevelt's air raid offense would run rampant for the rest of the contest.

Although Davis finished the match with the game-leading seven receptions for 114 yards, Souza-Armstead perhaps had the greatest impact. After two field goals and a ten-yard slant put Roosevelt up 20-3 to enter the half, the first Rough Rider play of the second half saw the 5 foot 9 junior catch the ball a few yards behind the line on a bubble screen.

A few blocks and a broken tackle later, Souza-Armstead was 41 yards down the field as he waltzed into the endzone.

Kamanao passed for a career-high 316 yards in the contest, completing 19 of 37 passes with two of them for scores, both to Souza-Armstead, who continued his stellar play of late, hauling in six passes for 101 yards, giving him five scores and 350 receiving yards in his last three outings.

On the very next drive, linebacker Izaiah Nakamura picked off one of two Kaiser quarterbacks, BJ Rezentes, and then took it 49 yards for an untouched pick-six.

That would be the last score of the game.

These two teams could have a chance to settle the season series in the HHSAA Division II State Championship, provided they make it past the first two rounds.

"It aint going to be anything until we do it again," Souza-Armstead said when asked about the win.

Roosevelt will host Kamehameha-Hawaii, while Kaiser takes on PAC-5 at Farrington; both games are set for Nov. 16, at 6:30 p.m.