OIA Football
No. 8 Farrington throttles Castle, 53-16


  

Sat, Sep 23, 2017 @ Farrington [ 6:30 pm ]


Final 1 2 3 4 T
Castle (3-6-0) 0 10 0 616
Farrington (5-5-0) 16 3 14 2053
Chris Afe-Alaivanu 214 yd 3 TD
Jaylen Uyemura-Lee 63 yd 1 TD
Samsen Tanuvasa 161 yd 1 TD
Bronson Buck 21 yd
Stephen Eter 103 yd 1 TD
Makana Smith 48 yd 1 TD





KALIHI — Chris Afe-Alaivanu threw three touchdown passes and ran for another score to lift No. 8 Farrington to a 53-16 rout of visiting Castle before a homecoming crowd of about 4,000 fans at Edward ‘Skippa' Diaz Stadium at Henry Kusunoki Field Saturday night.

After a bye last week, the Governors rebounded from a 36-point loss to Mililani by posting their best offensive showing of the season. They improve to 4-3 overall, 4-2 in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I Red Conference.

Farrington racked up 443 yards of total offense and did so with a balanced attack, buoyed by a couple of juniors in the backfield.

Afe-Alaivanu, who had shared quarterbacking duties with senior Stephen Eter in all six of the Govs' previous games, was the full-time guy Saturday. The 6-foot-1, 273-pound Afe-Alaivanu completed 15 of his 25 pass attempts for 214 yards. He was not intercepted and also picked up 52 yards on nine rushes.

Like his quarterback, running back Samsen Tanuvasa shed the ‘part-time' label from his duties Saturday. The 5-foot-9, 194-pound junior carried 18 times for 161 yards — an average of 8.9 per rush — with a touchdown.

Coming into the game, Tanuvasa had just 17 rushes for 110 yards on the season.

"I think he was the big difference," Farrington coach Randall Okimoto said. "With him being a veteran guy back there, he's able to make people miss and just get the extra yards in our running game that we were missing. Not to take anything away from our other backs, but he's just more seasoned and so he really gave us a boost."

Tanuvasa's 4-yard TD run and Afe-Alaivanu's 32-yard scoring strike to Chad Silva — along with a pair of successful two-point conversions — gave the Govs a 16-0 lead after the first quarter.

Castle scored twice in a span of less than two minutes early in the second quarter. Cheydan Costa hit a 33-yard field goal and Keanu Tilton's 2-yard TD run cut the Govs' lead to 16-10 with 7:46 left in the first half.

Farrington took a 19-10 advantage into the half following Blessing Umaga's 32-yard field goal.

The Govs padded their lead with touchdown runs of 13 and 2 yards by Afe-Alaivanu and Reginald Faamatau, respectively, in the third quarter.

A 9-yard TD pass from Afe-Availanu to Eter capped a nine-play, 70-yard drive with 9:36 remaining. On Castle's next play from scrimmage, quarterback Jaylen Uyemura-Lee was picked off by Farrington's Tymon Paleafei, who returned it 28 yards for the score. Ezra Williams tacked on the extra point to give his team a 46-10 lead.

Eter finished with game-highs of six receptions for 103 yards and Silva added four grabs for 77 yards.

The Knights' lone score after halftime came on a 35-yard TD pass from Uyemura-Lee to Makana Smith with 8:16 remaining in the game.

However, Farrington got a 24-yard return from Chasen Castilliano — who also doubled as king of the homecoming court — on the ensuing kickoff, and Tanuvasa picked up 47 yards on a scamper up the middle before Manaia Sevao closed out the scoring with a 7-yard back-shoulder TD pass from Afe-Alaivanu on first-and-goal.

"I gotta give Chris credit," Okimoto said. "We decided to stay with him (at quarterback) all night. We wanted him to take his hits, but to come back from it and that was good to see, that he would come back from those sacks and then complete passes."

Castle was limited to 135 yards of total offense and ran 22 fewer plays from scrimmage than Farrington did. Seven different players recorded a rush attempt for the Knights, who ran the ball 27 times but averaged just 2.7 yards per carry. Uyemura-Lee finished 6-of-12 passing for 63 yards with an interception.

"We played hard the first half, (but) Farrington is just one tough team," Castle coach John Hao said. "They play to the very end, and in the end they executed in the second half, which we struggled in, so I think what we've got to do is just go to the drawing board and make sure our guys know exactly their X's and O's."

Elijah Poo-Kekiwi had a game-high seven tackles, a fumble recovery and a pass break-up to lead the Knights defensively.

Thane Tanuvasa led the Farrington defense with 6 1/2 stops. Umaga added 2 1/2 tackles for loss, five total stops and two fumble recoveries.

Farrington was 6 of 7 on red zone chances.

The win keeps the Govs in the hunt for a second-place finish in the OIA D1 Red, which they can clinch with a win over Leilehua in next week's regular-season finale.

The Knights dropped their third consecutive game to fall to 3-5 overall, 3-4 in league play.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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