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OIA D2 playoff race heats up




While all playoff spots in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I tournament have been secured, Division II is still up in the air. 

Five teams in the eight-team league are still in the running for one of four berths into the OIA Division II playoffs after Kalani's 28-7 win over Kalaheo Friday night. 

Pearl City is sitting pretty atop the league standings with a 4-0 league record with a date against winless McKinley Saturday night. The winner of the Waipahu (5-1 overall, 4-1 OIA) and Kaimuki (4-2 overall, 4-1 OIA) matchup on the same night will momentarily move into second place in the division. Waialua (3-2) enjoyed a bye this week while the Falcons improved to 3-2 after their win over the Mustangs. 

As weird as it sounds, all teams could end up tied for first place at the end of the season with a 5-2 record if each team beat two of the five teams, but lost to the other two teams. The five teams would then have a coin flip to determine which four teams make it into the playoffs. 

This strange scenario will happen if: 

-The Chargers drop their final two games of the season to Kaimuki and Waialua. Pearl City already defeated Kalani and Waipahu earlier in the season.

-Waipahu beats Kaimuki, but loses to Kalani the following week. The Marauders are coming off a win over Waialua, but dropped their early season contest to the Chargers.

-Kaimuki loses to the Marauders and beats Pearl City the next week. The Bulldogs defeated Waialua in overtime to start their season, but lost to Kalani the following week.

-Waialua beats Pearl City to end its season. The Bulldogs of the North Shore already beat Kalani, but lost to Kaimuki and Waipahu.

-The Falcons defeat Waipahu next weekend. Kalani beat Kaimuki early in the year, but dropped games to Waialua and Pearl City. 

If Pearl City and Waipahu were to win out the rest of the season, there will still be another coin flip to determine the final two spots between Kaimuki, Kalani and Waialua. The three teams have already done a jan-ken-po between each other with one team beating the other, but lost to the other team.

The best thing all teams can do right now is win. All five teams control their own destiny if they can continue to add wins to their record.

If the playoff berths are decided by a coin toss, the odds are not in Waialua's favor. Coach Lincoln Barit said he has already lost two coin tosses in his career. 

"No can go Vegas if I keep on losing like that," he said. "One year we beat Kaiser and the next thing you know I find out we lost the coin toss and we're not in the playoffs."

The Bulldogs have a bye this weekend before taking on McKinley and Pearl City to finish out their regular season.

"When opportunity comes, we have to capitalize and stop our mistakes. We have to make better choices," Barit said when asked about what his team has to do to make the playoffs.

The big game that hinges on the balance of the playoffs is Saturday's game between Waipahu and Kaimuki. A win by the Marauders will move them into second place while the Bulldogs can set up a battle for first place next week against Pearl City if they come out victorious.

"We can't focus on scenarios and what if, and a lot of times that tends to catch our attention," said Kaimuki coach David Tautofi. "We're really sitting at a good position because the rest of the season is in our hands, something that we can control. We're blessed to have this schedule that we have, and we're definitely not looking past any of these two teams. We're taking the games as a championship title match."

Waipahu will also be celebrating homecoming against Kaimuki. The Marauders knows what's at stake in the upcoming matchup, but is not letting the added hype get the best of them.

"The mindset is always the same, we want to be 1-0 at the end of the week no matter who we play," said Waipahu coach Bryson Carvalho. "We don't change the way we prepare at all. You prepare to be the best in the state every week. Don't lower your game to who you play." 

Pearl City will also be playing Saturday night against McKinley. It will be the Chargers' first game on the field since defeated Waipahu, 21-7 on Sept. 10. The long break allowed Pearl City quarterback Nalu Simon time to heal up after dealing with "under the weather" symptoms against the Marauders.

"We took a couple of days off just to give the kids a break and to let them heal up and get back into their academics, so that was good," said Pearl City coach Robin Kami. "We told the kids we just take it one game at a time. Everybody in this division is tough so we can't take anybody for granted." 

The Falcons' win over Kalaheo was also their first game on the field since beating Roosevelt, 27-12 on Sept. 10. Kalani was able to do some of the same things Pearl City did during the break, as well as partake in some team-bonding activities.

"It was a pretty nice break for us," said Kalani first-year coach Scott Melemai. "We worked out a lot on our school work and had practices on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays we had a couple of team-bonding things, like dinners, and we were able to fine tune a lot of our stuff so it's been good for us."



Reach Michael Lasquero at [email protected].




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