OIA Football
Defense, run game power Waialua to first win over Kaimuki since 2016


Kalani Takase | ScoringLive
September 7, 2024, 11:52pm

  

Sat, Sep 7, 2024 @ Farrington [ 6:00 pm ]

Waialua

34

Kaimuki

14

Final 1 2 3 4 T
Waialua (4-5-0) 0 6 15 1334
Kaimuki (0-7-0) 0 14 0 014
Gabriel Logan 158 yd 2 TD
Emery Abilla 93 yd 2 TD
Lukela Hicks 77 yd 1 TD
Sky Hirota 37 yd 1 TD



KALIHI — Waialua took this one away from Kaimuki in the second half. 

Led by a lights-out effort from its defense, Waialua rallied to a long-awaited 34-14 win over Kaimuki in the regular season opener for both teams Saturday night. 

A crowd of about 900 fans at Farrington's Edward ‘Skippa' Diaz Stadium at Kusunoki Field saw Waialua (2-1 overall, 1-0 league) score the game's final 28 points — all of them coming off of second-half turnovers — to run away from Kaimuki (0-1, 0-1), which was making its season debut. 

Kaimuki, which suited up just 25 players for the contest, saw a 14-6 halftime lead slip away. It had won its last six games against Waialua dating back to the 2017 season. 

"It felt good," said Waialua coach Gary Wirtz of the program's first win over Kaimuki since Oct. 21, 2016. 

"We had a slow start but we were able to make the corrections at halftime to comeback and do what we needed to do to get the win," Wirtz said. 

Waialua got a trio of interceptions — two of them by cornerback Germaine Bagasol, the other by defensive lineman Shaedon Lele — and a fumble recovery. Its offense parlayed those takeaways into four second-half scores: a pair of touchdown runs by running back Taylor Calaro, another by quarterback Emery Abilla and an Abilla pass TD to Sky Hirota. 

"I think it was just a team effort. All the turnovers just got us hyped for the offense to give us motivation to score. Whatever we did on defense carried over to the offense and I just have to thank my (offensive) line," said Calaro, who gashed an out-manned Kaimuki defense for 159 yards on 17 carries. 

Calaro, a 5-foot-10, 160-pound senior, averaged better than nine yards per carry. He had just six carries for 49 yards in the first half. 

"It feels great. I've never run for that much before," Calaro said.

As a team, Waialua racked up 137 of its 199 rushing yards after the break. If not for a kneel down on the final play of the game, Wirtz's squad would have eclipsed the 200-yard mark. 

"They need to do better, we need to get that two-hundred," Wirtz joked. 

Kaimuki had momentum on its side after a pair of touchdowns late in the first half. It halted Waialua's first second-half possession with a leaping interception by Lukela Hicks, but gave the ball right back to Waialua two plays after a fumble following a short completion. Two plays later, Kaimuki recycled the turnover into a 13-yard touchdown pass from Abilla to Hirota just past the midpoint of the third quarter. Abilla found Hicks on the two-point conversion that followed to even the score at 14. 

Kaimuki's next drive ended with an interception three plays in when Bagasol picked off Logan Gabriel near midfield. Six plays and 57 yards later, Waialua took the lead for good on a 1-yard plunge into the end zone by Calaro with 1:05 left in the third. 

Gabriel was intercepted again one play into the fourth quarter. Lele read the screen pass and snatched the short pass out of the air. Four plays later, Abilla climbed the pocket and scrambled for a 5-yard touchdown on a fourth down play. Kaies Demello converted the extra point to make it a 28-14 lead for Waialua with 9:41 to play. 

It was more of the same three plays into Kaimuki's next possession. Bagasol again picked off a Gabriel pass to get his team the ball back. Calaro broke free for a 49-yard run one play later and carved his way into the end zone from 11 yards out on the play after that to close out the scoring. 

"I felt like after halftime everyone locked in, everyone got their emotions straight and we just played football," said Bagasol, a 5-foot-9, 150-pound senior. 

Bagasol drew the ire of the Waialua coaching staff early in the first half when he was flagged for a personal foul, but atoned for his mistake with his play the rest of the way. 

"I was learning from my mistakes and I didn't let my emotions control me in the second half," Bagasol acknowledged. 

After a scoreless first quarter, Waialua was first to get on the board at the 9:15 mark of the second stanza. It capped a 12-play, 79-yard drive that took nearly seven minutes off the clock with a nine-yard touchdown pass from Abilla to Cash Manalo. Abilla extended the play with his feet then found Manalo open in the back of the end zone on the scoring play, which came on a fourth-and-6. 

The scoring drive included a pair of third-down conversions that prolonged the possession: an eight-yard completion from Abilla to Kade Celebre to move the chains on a third-and-3 and a 19-yard run by Calaro to convert a third-and-1. Calaro carried on six consecutive plays for a combined 49 yards. 

Kaimuki found some continuity on offense in the latter parts of the second quarter. It punctuated its final two possessions before halftime with trips to the end zone, both times aided by favorable field position. 

After its defense forced a three-and-out by Waialua, Kaimuki began its penultimate drive of the first half at the Waialua 45-yard line. Logan and Marbert Unguent hooked up for a big 32-yard pass play down the left seam and after a false start penalty pushed Kaimuki back five yards, Logan found Talan Domingo wide open near the right front pylon of the end zone for a 24-yard scoring strike with 3:48 left in the second quarter. Hinano Kahawai tacked on the extra point to give Kaimuki its first lead at 7-6. 

Kaimuki's defense kept momentum on its side after it forced a turnover on downs on Waialua's ensuing possession and got its offense the ball back with 1:50 left until the intermission. 

Kaimuki needed just three plays plays to strike pay dirt this time. Logan hit Hicks for a 10-yard completion on the opening play of the drive. Kuratsu-Cook then ripped off a 25-yard run up the middle before Hicks beat his defender down the right sideline on the very next play and hauled in a 34-yard TD pass from Logan. After the Kahawai PAT, Kaimuki held a 14-6 lead with 49 seconds to play in the half. 

Kaimuki finished with more total yards (301) than Waialua (292), but only passed for 37 of its 158 yards through the air after halftime. Logan was 9-of-11 passing for 121 yards and two touchdowns through the first 24 minutes, but completed only six of his 16 attempts in the final two quarters. 

"The defense really stepped up. We made the corrections and they just balled out," said Wirtz, whose defense held Kaimuki to just 1 of 6 on third downs. 

Running back Zechariah Kuratsu-Cook was a bright spot for Kaimuki. The senior finished with 17 carries for 135 yards despite just 46 first-half yards on six attempts. 

Not only was it Kaimuki's first game of the season, it was its first under rookie coach Kawehi Moefu. 

"Football is a game of momentum. One play can change the momentum and the direction of the game and just the emotion of the game, so for the most part with us, it's just learning how to control our emotions and we have a young team. It's still a young team, so we're still trying to learn how to regulate our emotions and we'll go from there," Moefu said. 

One area of concern Moefu and his coaching staff will be sure to address is the 18 penalties that cost his team 159 yards Saturday night. No fewer than eight of the penalties against his team were of the 15-yard variety, another seven were for false starts or illegal procedure calls. 

Moefu's squad was without nine players who were academically ineligible. Even amongst those who were available, a bevy of them were fresh faces to the varsity level. 

"We got a bunch of first timers so they were learning the game and even us as coaches — it's my first time as a head coach so I'm still learning the procedures," Moefu said. "That's what it is, it's learning."

Kaimuki will look to rebound against Roosevelt (2-1, 0-1) Friday when it continues Oahu Interscholastic Association Division II play. Kickoff for that game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Rough Riders' Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium. 

Waialua will look to carry over momentum into its road game at Castle Friday night, which is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start time. 


Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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