Football
Late-game heroics helps Damien escape with narrow win over Nanakuli


Kalani Takase | ScoringLive
August 19, 2023, 11:54pm

  


Sat, Aug 19, 2023 @ Nanakuli [ 6:30 pm ]

Damien

37

Nanakuli

32

Final 1 2 3 4 T
Damien (8-4-0) 7 6 12 1237
Nanakuli (1-6-1) 6 8 6 1232
Kanoa Torres 199 yd 2 TD
Alani Tuifua 254 yd 5 TD
Christian Asinsin 99 yd 1 TD
Sylas Alaimalo 126 yd
Richard Federico 99 yd 2 TD
Dayton Savea 157 yd 3 TD

NANAKULI — Damien did just enough to win Saturday night. 

AJ Tuifua found Wyatt Ho-Williams in the back of the zone for an 8-yard touchdown pass and the go-ahead score with 13 seconds left to lift visiting Damien to a 37-32 win over Nanakuli in a non-league football game. 

A crowd of about 800 fans were entertained by a back-and-forth contest that saw seven leads changes, including five in second half. 

Tuifua, a sophomore quarterback, finished with 254 yards and five touchdowns, but struggled early on. His second pass of the game resulted in a pick 6 that gave the Golden Hawks the game's first score; Tuifua was just 4-of-12 passing for 110 yards in the first half. 

After the intermission, however, it was a different Tuifua. He connected on 9 of 15 passes — including seven of his final nine throws — for 144 yards. 

"It's still a work in progress with him," Monarchs acting coach Lefa Lauti said of Tuifua. "A lot of it just had to do with him trusting himself that he can do the job and that's the biggest thing. If he can trust himself that he can play with anybody out there, he'll be OK and we'll see that second-half AJ."

Damien QB AJ Tuifua drops back to pass against Nanakuli in the first half of a non-league matchup Saturday. CJ Caraang | SL    Purchase image

By his own admission, it was an off night for Tuifua, but in the end, it was enough to get the job done. 

"The team just believed in me so I just had to have their back and just exceed," Tuifua said. 

Tuifua's 42-yard touchdown pass to Nalu Chinen-Zablan gave his team a 31-20 lead a few minutes into the final quarter. However, Nanakuli cut it to a one-score game with a 19-yard TD pass from Kanoa Torres to Richard Federico with 6:57 on the clock. 

The Golden Hawks pulled ahead with 1:25 to play after Torres and Federico hooked up once more, this time for an 18-yard scoring strike. The two-point conversion was no good and they clung to a 32-31 advantage. 

Damien began its ensuing drive at its own 45-yard line after Nanakuli was flagged for a 15-yard facemask penalty on the kickoff. Tuifua sandwiched completions of 10 and 22 yards to Dayton Savea around a 14-yard scramble to set up first-and-10 from the Nanakuli 11-yard line. After Sylas Alaimalo picked up three yards on a first-down run, Tuifua threw an incomplete pass on second down to leave third-and-7 from the 8. 

After a timeout by each team with 20 seconds to play, Tuifua and the Monarchs came up with some late-game heroics. Tuifua received the shotgun snap, dropped back three steps then lofted a well-placed pass to the back of the end zone for Ho-Williams, who reached out and snagged the ball with both hands then got both feet in bounds to finish the play. It was his only catch of the night. 

"We wanted to isolate the shorter side of the field because we thought we had a better matchup and AJ just made a great play against a real tight defense that they had," Lauti said. 

Tuifua said that Ho-Williams, a 5-foot-10, 140-pound freshman — was his first read on the play. 

"I had the trust in my line and the line had the trust in me to succeed and I always have the trust in my receivers that they'll catch the ball," he said. 

In addition to his reception on the game-winning touchdown, Ho-Williams also came up with several key defensive plays — including a pair of first-half pass break-ups — from his linebacker position. 

"For a young buck like him to step up as a freshman playing on both sides is huge and it's rare for us, so to have a guy like Wyatt come up big like that shows what kind of player he is and the sky is the limit with that young kid," Lauti said. 

Nanakuli got the ball back with seven seconds remaining at its own 32-yard line, but was unable to get past midfield before the time ran out. 

"Hats off to Nanakuli," Lauti said. "They had a great game plan offensively. They came to watch us last week and did their homework, but we just got a bit better overall team-wise, just limiting the mistakes on both sides of the ball."

The Golden Hawks posted 376 yards of total offense. Torres threw for 199 yards on 17-of-30 passing without an interception. Federico finished with five grabs for 99 yards and Imi Asinsin tallied seven catches for 71 yards. Asinsin also ran for 99 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries and Talitonu Keohuhu added 11 carries for 64 yards and a touchdown in the loss. 

Tamalii Namulauti-Auau's 11-yard interception return for touchdown opened the scoring midway through the first quarter. 

Damien tied it at 6 late in the opening stanza with a 25-yard TD pass from Tuifua to Savea. The pair also connected for scoring strikes of 32 and 27 yards. 

Savea recorded six receptions for 157 yards. Sylas Alaimalo ran for 126 yards on 16 carries and Tuifua ran seven times for 72 yards, including a 24-yard touchdown that put his team ahead, 25-20. 

Damien was 4 of 9 on third downs, while Nanakuli converted on 7 of 15 third downs. 

The Golden Hawks were a perfect 4 for 4 on fourth downs, but were flagged 17 times for 130 yards. 

The Monarchs were penalized nine times for 77 yards. 

The game was delayed for more than 30 minutes at the 1:33 mark of the first quarter when Damien's Jayden Rivera was injured while covering a Nanakuli kickoff return. He was eventually taken to a hospital via ambulance with a leg injury. 

Damien (1-1) will play Kauai Friday at Vidinha Stadium in Lihue, while Nanakuli (0-1) will visit No. 14 Farrington that same night. 


Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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