Flag Football
Leilehua upsets No. 1 seed Moanalua, will face Punahou in semifinals


Kalani Takase | ScoringLive
May 2, 2025, 12:31am

  

Thu, May 1, 2025 @ Mililani [ 7:30 pm ]

Leilehua

7

Moanalua

6

Final 1 2 3 4 T
Leilehua 7 0 0 07
Moanalua 0 0 0 66
Zaira Sugui 115 yd 1 TD
Cali Moniz-Kealoha 85 yd 1 TD
Zaira Sugui 12 yd
Madi Powell 22 yd



MILILANI — Cinderella wore green and gold Thursday night. 

Madi Powell came down with three of her team's four interceptions to lead a staunch defensive effort by Leilehua in a 7-6 upset of top-seeded and previously-unbeaten Moanalua in a quarterfinal game of the Hawaii Dental Service/HHSAA Girls Flag Football State Championships. 

Before a crowd of a few hundred fans at Mililani's John Kauinana Stadium, the Mules (9-2), who finished fifth in the Oahu Interscholastic Association, posted a monumental upset of the OIA champion Na Menehune (9-1). 

Leilehua will face ILH runner-up Punahou in the 7:30 p.m. semifinal Friday at Kauinana Stadium.

Powell, a 5-foot-4 senior defensive back and wide receiver, was matched up all night against Moanalua superstar freshman wideout Jodie Keo, who entered the game as the state's leading receiver with 66 receptions for 1,021 yards and 19 touchdowns. 

When the teams faced off back on Apr. 15 in the quarterfinals of the OIA tournament, Keo hauled in nine catches for 107 yards and two TDs to help Moanalua roll to a 32-6 drubbing of the Mules. 

The Menes racked up 249 yards of total offense that night, including 215 through the air by quarterback Zaira Sugui, who completed 16 of 24 passes with four TDs and one interception. 

This time around was an entirely different story. 

Leilehua clamped down defensively to limit Sugui to 115 yards on 9-of-29 passing with one TD and four INTs. Keo managed only two catches for 35 yards and Moanalua was limited to 117 net yards. 

"The defense was unreal. The girls played awesome," Mules coach Bryant Moniz exclaimed. 

Moniz shared that ever since the loss to the Menes, his team has been laser-focused in practices with the hopes that a chance at redemption would come. 

"We knew that eventually if we wanted to win this thing we gotta beat them and so every practice we would practice and prepare for Moanalua, prepare for Moanalua, prepare for Moanalua and when we saw the brackets come out we knew we would have them second and we were like, ‘perfect, you know, we've been preparing for them,' " Moniz said. 

Powell's first pick of the night came on Moanalua's second play from scrimmage and led to the game's opening score two plays later, when Maddison Andres-Martinez reached over two Na Menehune defensive backs for a 20-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Cali Moniz-Kealoha. 

The scoring play got the Mules on the board just past the midway point of the opening quarter. They went for the one-point conversion on the ensuing PAT and Moniz-Kealoha ran it in from three yards out to give her team a 7-0 lead. 

Moanalua went three-and-out on its second possession then turned it over on downs after that before the first half expired to halt their fourth drive. 

Na Menehune began the second half with the ball, but Sugui was intercepted on fourth-and-5 by Maci Rivera. A few minutes later, Powell came up with her second pick on another Sugui fourth-down pass. 

It wasn't until the final minutes of the fourth quarter that Moanalua finally found the end zone. Sugui hooked up with Heart Drianda Villacortez for a 2-yard scoring strike on a crossing route with exactly two minutes left to play. However, Sugui was intercepted on the one-point conversion by none other than Powell. 

"We all knew who we had to mark (because) we went over it in practice and every single game, but we knew they were gonna change it up so we just all stuck to what we did at practice, went back to basics and yeah, I just saw the ball and went up for it," Powell recalled. 

Powell's heads-up play preserved a narrow one-point lead for the Mules. However, they went three-and-out on their drive that followed and to make matters worse, handed the ball back to the Menes 32 yards from the end zone after Rivera was ruled to have taken more than the maximum seven seconds to punt the football on fourth down. 

Sugui and co. had 41.2 seconds to work with. Her first three pass attempts after the change of possession all fell incomplete with Rivera coming up with a crucial pass break-up on third down. On fourth-and-12, Sugui targeted Keo, who flashed open near the goal line, but Powell made up ground and made a leaping interception to give her team the ball back with 17.7 seconds remaining. Moniz-Kealoha was able to run out the remaining of the clock with one kneel-down.

"I actually thought (Keo) was gonna catch it," Powell disclosed. "She was actually a whole stride and a half ahead of me, but I just had that last boost of energy and just somehow came up with it."

Moniz lauded Powell for rising to the occasion in the big moment. 

"She was huge. We knew it was going to come down to her versus (Keo) and that was the game that we were willing to bank on — put our best on their best, let the chips falls where they may; Madi P got the best of her tonight and she's just a baller," Moniz said. 

To be sure, Powell relished the opportunity to lineup against Keo once more. 

"Jodie is a great player, along with all the other girls at Moanalua, but coach Mo came in with a game plan and we practiced it all week last week and we just had to execute and we did. Everybody did their part and we came out with a dub," Powell said. 

Powell was the beneficiary of the constant pressure on Sugui provided by pass-rushers Minei Haiola-Borges and Kaitlyn Pres, who combined for seven tackles for loss, including five sacks. 

"Our blitzers were unreal. We had to coach them up because not only does (Sugui) have the best arm in the state, but she can run too, so we had to make sure that she didn't kill us with her legs and our blitzers, Minei and Kaitlyn did that. They made sure that she had to throw the ball with pressure in her face and then on the backside the girls locked it up and they did a great job," Moniz said. 

Haiola-Borges, a 5-foot-4 senior, recorded six total tackles, including five behind the line of scrimmage and three sacks, while Pres, a 5-foot freshman, tallied two sacks. 

"We just worked as a team and me and Kaitlyn had to really work because (Sugui) is very shifty so this time breaking down was a big thing because last time we played them we would just run past her and she would move a lot, so breaking down was a big help for us," Haiola-Borges said. 

Moniz was elated to see that his players were able to make the most of a second chance against the prolific Menes. 

"Exactly how we practice is how it played out and I told them at the time to take the loss and even though it hurt, to learn from it and that we'll adjust and we'll get them back when the time comes around again and luckily enough that time was tonight," Moniz said. 

Since the 26-point loss at the hands of the Menes back in mid-April, the Mules have reeled off four straight wins and now find themselves in the final four of the inaugural state tournament. 

"Oh my God, it feels amazing. I just can't even put it into words, it's an amazing feeling, but we ain't done yet," Powell said. 

In the early quarterfinal at Mililani Thursday, Punahou posted a 12-0 win over MIL champion and No. 4 seed Kamehameha-Maui. 

Sophomore quarterback Maryah Puletasi and freshman wide receiver Alethea Hayashi hooked up for both scores as the Buffanblu (8-2) shut out the Warriors (10-1). 

Punahou needed just seven plays to get on the board after Puletasi's underhand toss to Hayashi on third-and-goal resulted in a 2-yard touchdown pass.

"It's kind of like an option and we just gotta really work on our chemistry and so all this week we've just been working on building that chemistry and building that relationship so that we could succeed," described Hayashi, a 5-foot-6 freshman whose first sport is basketball.

That gave her team a 6-0 lead after the one-point conversion failed. 

The score held through halftime until about the three-minute mark of the third quarter, when Hayashi ran a route across the field from right to left, hauled in a pass from Puletasi, then split a pair of defenders on her way to the end zone. 

"That was kind of just — I looked at the gap and I saw it so I kind of just went through it. We've been working on making moves so I just tried to shift my hips and then I got to find an open gap and just make a touchdown," said Hayashi, who finished with seven receptions for 101 yards.

Puletasi completed 14 of her 20 pass attempts for 147 yards and was intercepted twice. 

Punahou posted 174 yards of total offense, while Kamehameha-Maui threw for 121 of its 128 total yards. 

Warriors quarterback Tyra Shimizu went 14-for-28 passing with one pick. 

"I think our defense did a really good job executing. They really hunkered down and just kept them in their spot and wouldn't even really let them get the first down that often and I think they did a really good job on that," Hayashi said. 

KS-Maui picked up only two first downs and was 1 of 8 on third-down conversions. Five of its posssessions ended with punts. 

Linebacker Capri Heffernan had five flag pulls, while defensive back Brooke Asato came up with three flag pulls, one interception and a pass break-up. Linebacker Malia McCoy broke up three passes and pulled two flags, including one behind the line of scrimmage. 

Myla Tuitele pulled seven flags and broke-up one pass for KS-Maui. Evalani Keawekane notched six flag pulls and two interceptions and Kilihea Lee recorded three of her five flag pulls behind the line of scrimmage, including a pair of sacks. 

Both teams were coming off shutout victories in Wednesday's opening round of the 16-team tournament. Punahou posted a 20-0 win over Waimea, while KS-Maui blanked Hilo by a score of 46-0.

Hayashi said that while the Buffanblu had little time to prepare for the Warriors, it ultimately proved to be of little consequence. 

"We only got the game that we watched yesterday and one day to prepare, if that, but we just kind of came in knowing that we had to put our best effort out and I think that's what we did. We just came in running our own game and not worrying about what they might do and I think it was a good team effort because we all came out to compete," she said. 

Kamehameha-Maui will play Moanalua in a fifth-place semifinal, 4:30 p.m. Friday at Mililani. 


Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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