Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Special teams. It's the third phase of the game of football that often goes unappreciated, but that's just fine with Kekoa Sasaoka.

The senior placekicker accounted for 13 points in Kahuku's 40-0 shellacking of Farrington in an OIA Division I semifinal at Aloha Stadium Friday night.

Sasaoka made a trio of field goals, including a career-long 45-yarder that closed out the scoring and was 4 of 5 on extra-point attempts (his lone miss was blocked).

"It's just my job. Whatever I can do to give my team points feels good," Sasaoka said.

He put the first points of the game on the board with his 22-yard field goal late in the first quarter to cap a nine-play, 75-yard drive. Early in the third quarter, he drilled a 23-yard field goal to culminate Kahuku's first second-half possession.

With the game in running clock and time winding down lined up the 45-yard try and split the uprights with lots of room to spare.

"I was just calm. I just treated it like another kick," said Sasaoka, who has made seven field goals this year and went over 100 career points earlier in the season.

Sasaoka also kept Farrington's dangerous kick returner Challen Faamatau at bay with all nine of his kickoffs going for touchbacks. The Govs' averaging start position was their own 22-yard line.

"I wasn't hitting the ball well tonight, so I expect (usually) out of the back (of the end zone)," Sasaoka said, whose lone punt of the night came on Kahuku's first possession of the game and went for 33 yards and was not returned.

It was the first meeting between the former-Red East Conference rivals and carried some extra meaning for Sasaoka, who played at Kahuku as a freshman, transferred to Farrington for two seasons before returning to the Kahuku.

"I tried to approach it like any other, but I can't just because I have so much history over there, but it felt good just to play them and see all my friends again," Sasaoka said.

Sasaoka and the Red Raiders will try for league-leading 24th OIA title when they take on defending champion and second-ranked Mililani Friday night.