ALA WAI — Venerable Iolani football coach Wendell Look liked what he saw out of his football team Saturday. 

A week after the Raiders allowed 36 points only to storm back to fend off an upset-minded Radford team on the final play of the game, Look's squad dominated visiting Maui High from start to finish in a convincing 35-0 win on a sun-drenched afternoon at Eddie Hamada Track and Field at Kozuki Stadium. 

Quarterback CJ Villanueva threw three touchdowns passes and running back Ronin Fanelli rolled up 136 yards on the ground and made two trips to the end zone himself as the Raiders (2-0) eased past the Sabers (1-1). 

Iolani's defense paved the way to Saturday's shut out with a stingy performance that saw Maui limited to only eight first downs and a mere 161 yards of total offense. 

The Sabers did not penetrate the red zone all afternoon and was 0 for 7 on third downs, as well as 0 for 2 on fourth downs. 

Look said that it was a big turnaround from last week's high-scoring affair against the Rams, who amassed 537 total yards, including 334 rushing. 

"Yes, definitely, especially on defense. We did better with assignments and execution of their assignments," said Look, who is in his 35th year as head coach of his alma mater. 

Maui ran for 111 yards — 87 of them coming on 15 carries by Micah Barut — and averaged a respectable five yards per rush. 

Look shared that a point of emphasis for his defense was restricting the Sabers' elusive quarterback, Kahlen Boteilho-Dougherty, who ran for 89 yards and a touchdown in his team's 21-6 win over Kealakehe a week ago. Boteilho-Dougherty also threw for 227 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 16-of-30 passing without an interception against the Waveriders. 

"We had the goal of containing this quarterback — this quarterback can run, that's why — and I thought we did a pretty good job on him, containing him," Look said. 

Boteilho-Dougherty was held to only four carries for 13 yards. He was 6-of-13 passing for just 28 yards. 

Of Maui's nine offensive possessions, four of them ended with a punt and two others resulted in a turnover on downs. One drive resulted in a lost fumble, another was halted via interception and one was terminated when the clock ran out on the first half. 

Pohai Lee, the former Baldwin coach who is in his first season leading the cross-town rival, took ownership of the lopsided defeat. 

"After our first win (last week), I feel we didn't prepare those guys enough and you can tell ‘em how tough the game is gonna be and Iolani is a tough team — they're a good, fundamentally trained, good coaching, well conditioned — so it's a hard lesson to learn but again, this is kind of a learning lesson where it's going to help us focus in on our regular season," Lee said. 

Things got off to a dubious start for the Sabers when the shotgun snap from center on their very first play from scrimmage sailed over Boteilho-Dougherty's head and resulted in a 19-yard loss and second-and-29 from their own 1-yard line. 

"The tough part about that is we had our starting center injured on Thursday and we're working with our backup center, but again, we had to learn from adversity and that's always going to be tough, but we did the best we could after that so the kids adjusted and we played a little better in the second half," Lee said. 

Maui went three-and-out and punted away on its opening possession, which set Iolani up with favorable field position to begin its first drive. An 11-yard punt return by Ayden Teranishi put the ball at the Sabers' 36-yard line and seven plays later, Villanueva hit wideout Kekama Kane on a quick slant to open the scoring. Kane benefitted from a block from right slotback Jaeden Park on the 8-yard touchdown pass. 

The Raiders lost a fumble two plays into their next possession, but the Sabers returned the favor three plays later. Defensive lineman Marcos King jarred the ball loose after a short completion for Maui and Zack Bagoyo recovered the fumble for Iolani. 

Just three plays after Bagoyo's fumble recovery — and two plays into the second quarter — Fanelli bounced a run outside and went 37 yards untouched to double up his team's lead. 

Iolani went quick strike on its next score. One play after Bagoyo dropped Maui's Noah Shepherd for a four-yard loss on fourth-and-2 — which resulted in a turnover on downs — Villanueva connected with a wide-open Park down the left sideline for a 49-yard scoring strike. 

It was similar situation that played out a few minutes later. Fanelli fumbled just beyond midfield, which was recovered by Maui's Jonah Cariaga. However, five plays after that, Bagoyo came up with an interception off of Sabers' backup quarterback Reno Vaka. The Raiders were able to recycle the takeaway into another 49-yard TD pass by Villanueva, this time to Kane, who was left wide open over the middle. 

Defensive back Kela Briones praised his teammates on offense for capitalizing on the opportunities that came about. 

"I think it was great that our offense was able to succeed in getting downfield and scoring for us and they might have times where they turned over the ball, but we always had their backs — just like how when we were in trouble last game, they had our backs — so it's just a mutual, team work thing," Briones said. 

After Ty Mitsunaga tacked on the extra point, the Raiders extended their lead to 28-0 with 95 seconds left in the first half. 

Briones said that it was important for the defense to atone for its poor play in the season opener, which was salvaged thanks to Villanueva's 30-yard TD pass to Kane as time expired to lift Iolani over Radford, 39-36. 

"I think today was huge for us because once we got into the hang of things, once we got the first stop and then the offense scoring, it was just a really big motivational boost and it was like we started believing ‘we can do this every play, we can do this every drive,' and we just gained confidence," Briones said. 

The Raiders spent the six days in between games honing in on their defensive shortcomings and making the necessary adjustments. The improvements were evident in their play against the Sabers. 

"I think the thing that we took most out of our last game was that we need to be more disciplined, not get too far ahead of ourselves because I think we were so antsy in our first game that we were getting complacent, being lazy on some plays and just looking where we're not supposed to be. This game, I think we were a lot more aggressive and we were a lot more disciplined in our reads and coverages and then I think our energy was motivated by how the offense had to bail us out last week, so now we wanted to be the ones to step up and take control of the game," Briones added. 

Iolani added a score after halftime on a 43-yard run by Fanelli four plays into the third quarter. Mitsunaga tacked on the PAT to send it into running time. 

The Raiders finished with 387 total yards. Villanueva went 10-of-11 passing for 185 yards without a pick. 

Iolani recorded eight of its 10 first downs before halftime through the air. After the break, it picked up six of its seven first downs via rush. 

Lee, whose team flew into Honolulu Saturday morning and returned to Kahului that same evening, tipped his cap to the home team for their execution.

"They do what they do, which is what we expected. They're explosive on offense and they move around on defense, so they get the most out of their kids," Lee said.

Maui begins league play at Kekaulike Friday, while Iolani will visit Aiea Saturday in a non-league contest.