MILILANI — Call it a Warrior uprising. 

Micah Rapozo kicked a 33-yard field goal in overtime to help Kapaa claim its very first First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Division I State Championship with its 10-7 win over top-seeded Konawaena on Saturday night. 

A crowd of 1,452 fans at John Kauinana Stadium saw the Warriors (9-2) outlast the Wildcats (10-3) in a game highlighted by staunch defensive performances from both teams. 

"Oh man, that was amazing," Kapaa coach Mike Tresler said.

Tresler's defense held Konawaena's high-powered offense — which came into the game averaging more than 45 points — to a season-low scoring output. Although the Wildcats posted 324 yards of total offense to the Warriors' 132, they failed to turn them into points. 

Konawaena only managed to convert one of its five trips to the red zone into scores. 

"You know what they say, offense wins games and defense wins championships, so all that just paid off now," senior defensive back Nash Burkart said.

Burkart accounted for Kapaa's lone touchdown with his 50-yard punt return for touchdown that broke a scoreless tie five plays into the fourth quarter. 

"That's my kind of game, right? Special teams and defense. We didn't score an offensive touchdown and we won a championship," Tresler stated. 

The only score the Warriors allowed was a 2-yard touchdown run by Hercules Nahale with 4:09 left in the game. Nakoa Ige converted the ensuing extra point for Konawaena to even the score at 7. 

The Wildcats had a chance to win it on the final play of regulation, but Ige's field goal attempt from 44 yards out was short of the goalpost to send it to overtime. 

Konawaena had the ball first to start the extra period and drove to the 5-yard line, but a costly 23-yard loss on third and goal forced Ige to attempt a 45-yard field goal, which also came up short. 

Kapaa then had its turn on offense and ran the ball three times with Nainoa Simmons before Rapozo was summoned to put a foot into the potential game-winning field goal. 

Tresler said there was some discussion between sending out Rapozo or Kamalei Gonsalves, two of the Warriors' trio of place-kickers they have utilized over the course of the season. Ultimately, he opted to put his trust in Rapozo. 

"I said, ‘Let's go, man. You got this,' " Tresler recalled. "He's a great kicker, great kid and he went out there and executed and did what he does in practice and it was simple and clean."

Rapozo had his first field goal attempt of the night — a 41-yarder early in the second quarter — blocked by Konawaena's Armenio Blanco, who came unblocked off the right edge. 

"I would say I hesitated," Rapozo described. "The snap was high so that kind of drew me back and I hesitated on stepping forward, so that was all me. I should have stepped forward quicker, so yeah, that was pretty much all me on the first attempt."

Rapozo said that when his opportunity arose he was eager to atone for his earlier misstep. Although the trajectory on his walk-off winner was a bit low, Rapozo said he felt confident the second he put boot to ball. 

"The contact felt perfect," he said. 

Rapozo added, "I was beyond ready. I was ready to just take over the game and just come out successful for my team and for my boys. We've worked very hard over this year and we won it."

For his part, Tresler was confident that his senior kicker would deliver in the clutch. 

"He had to fix up his timing — because that was a timing issue when we got blocked, the first one — but I'm so happy for him. He deserves it, he deserves the opportunity; that was huge," Tresler said. 

Burkart was a cautiously-optimistic spectator on the final play of the game. 

"It just went perfect because every day we practice that — before practice is special teams and after practice is special teams — so we really prepare for those moments so I think that we were really prepared for that moment and that pressure of the game because we really practice that, so it really paid off," Burkart said. 

Each team lost a fumble; they combined to throw five interceptions. There were 11 total punts in the game. 

"Both defenses played great," Konawaena coach Brad Uemoto said. "We couldn't get nothing moving offensively. We had spurts and then we just couldn't finish drives and defensively, man, our defense played well all year. Sometimes we're noted as Konawaena for our offense, but the underlying character to our team is our defense and they showed it tonight."

The Warriors were limited to 93 yards rushing and only seven total first downs. They entered the game averaging 252 rushing yards per game. 

Burkart got the scoring started with his punt return on special teams. Burkart fielded the punt by Buck Ka-Ne Kala at midfield then started to his right before changed directions toward the wide side of the field. Burkart was able to turn the corner and raced down the left sideline for a touchdown. 

"They didn't kick to me all game so I finally got one. It was kind of dead on the right side and all these guys were coming on the right side and they all started to take their angles on the right, so right when he did that I made a move to the right, broke it to the left and it was just green grass," Burkart described. 

The Warriors seemed to benefit from a call in overtime. On the Wildcats' seventh play of their overtime possession — the 23-yard loss that backed them up out of the red zone — it initially appeared that quarterback Keenan Alani was intercepted by Kapaa defensive lineman Masias Merseburgh, who returned it a few yards before he was stripped of the football. 

A Konawaena offensive lineman covered up the apparent fumble, but the change of possession would have given the Wildcats a fresh set of downs. Instead, however, the play was ruled a fumble with no change of possession and the result was fourth-and-goal from the 28-yard line for the Konawaena offense. 

Uemoto said he thought the play should have been ruled an incomplete pass, but the officiating crew disagreed. 

"They said it was a fumble, but I felt that if it was a fumble it was recovered by the defense and then he possessed the ball for about five yards, fumbled it back to us, it was a change of possession back to us, which would have been a first down for us from that spot," Uemoto said. 

He was told that because it was determined on the field that no change of possession occurred, the play could not be reviewed. 

"We just got the short end of the straw all the way around on that play. I seen the play live, I seen the kid pick the ball up and run about five yards and then we stripped it, so I mean without review they just went off of what they seen on the field," Uemoto said. 

The Wildcats, who were playing in their third consecutive D1 title game, saw their nine-game win streak come to an end. They were seeking their second championship in three years. 

Since it won the D2 crown back in 2021, Kapaa has made a steady ascent to the top of the D1 mountain. A first-round loss in the 2022 state tournament was followed by a semifinal run a year ago. The Warriors' 2023 season ended in Kealakekua with a 37-19 loss to Konawaena. A number of travel issues — including splitting the team up over four flights from Kauai to Kona with a stopover in Honolulu and the team bus breaking down on the way to Julian Yates Field — left Tresler's squad scrambling in the lead up to kickoff. 

This time around, however, the Warriors proved their resiliency and avenged the loss to the Wildcats from a year ago. 

"These kids dealt with adversity and they just eat it for lunch. They accept it as part of football, it doesn't affect them. They know how to deal with it, they thrive in it and that's the lessons we learned," Tresler reflected. 

Burkart said the season-ending road defeat at the hands of Konawaena provided all the motivation his team needed over the offseason. 

"We've been working for this since January and all that work is paying off now. After that loss to Kona, losing those seniors in my last game with some of my best friends, it really — it just means so much to us and this team and the seniors on this team because we've been working for this forever and all that work just paid off," Burkart said. 

After it opened the year with consecutive losses to OIA Open Division teams Farrington and Kapolei, Kapaa won its final nine games of the season.