HONOKAA — Senior quarterback Nainoa Falk accounted for four touchdowns, and the Honokaa offense found a fourth-quarter scoring groove to turn a close football game against Keaau into a blowout.
The Dragons opened the second half with a full-house backfield, but their three-running back set didn’t kick into high gear until the final 12 minutes.
That’s when the Dragons scored four touchdowns, and defeated the Cougars 45-18 in a Big Island Interscholastic Federation game Saturday night that featured over three hours of punishing tackles by both teams.
Honokaa (2-2 BIIF Division II, 2-2 overall) leveled its record while Keaau (0-4 D-I, 0-5) came up empty despite trailing just 16-12 heading into the fourth quarter.
In the third quarter, Keaau quarterback Richard Hatori-Kanakaole threw a 16-yard touchdown to Maurice Smith on a broken play. A bad snap went off the QB’s hands, but Hatori-Kanakaole scooped up the ball, and fired his second scoring strike.
Honokaa started the fourth quarter with prime field position after a 30-yard Keaau punt. From the Cougars’ 45-yard line, it took the Dragons only three plays to score, capped by a Paul Purdy 28-yard run.
Then Keaau marched 70 yards on 10 plays to get within 23-18, after Justin Quesada’s 1-yard touchdown plunge.
On the next series, the Dragons started near midfield after the kickoff, ran four plays, and scored when Sione Epenesa ran in from 22 yards out for a 30-18 lead.
Epenesa got the ball back with an interception, and three plays later Falk scored on a 40-yard run for a 37-18 cushion with 1:56 remaining in the game.
On the following series, Honokaa’s Isaiah Paiva got the ball back again with another interception, and three plays later Josh Perry caught a 7-yard scoring strike from Falk. The Dragons went for two points, and scored on a trick play: Falk threw to kicker Preston Branco. There was 52.7 seconds showing on the clock.
The first half was a time for experiments for both offenses, which ran the jet sweep with varying degrees of success.
In the first quarter, Purdy scored on a 5-yard jet sweep run, and Keaau answered with a 73-yard, 15-play drive, sparked by a fake punt 7-yard run by Quesada on fourth-and-6 at the Cougar 35. On Keaau’s first play, receiver Byron Cachola ran a jet sweep for a yard. The last drive of the play was better for Cachola, who caught a 10-yard TD pass.
Laurie Silva, one of two girls on Keaau’s roster (fellow senior Kathrine Hann is the other), missed the extra-point attempt. But Honokaa was charged with a roughing the kicker penalty. The Cougars went for a two-point run and failed.
In the second quarter, Hatori-Kanakaole slipped in the end zone for a safety. Then the Cougars recovered a line-drive onside kick, but went three-and-out.
On Honokaa’s ensuing series, Epenesa rushed for a 33-yard score on a counter, set up by a Purdy’s fake jet sweep. Purdy ran one way, the Keaau coaches yelled “Watch the counter,” and Epenesa took the handoff and blasted in the other direction for a 16-6 halftime lead.
Then the second half arrived, and it played out like a toughness test. If the sport were baseball, then each pitching staff junked their offspeed stuff, and whipped nothing but fastballs, challenging the other on every pitch or play.
The Dragons changed schemes and went from an I-formation to their jumbo set, and the Cougars still ran their double-tight end set, but shifted strategy to bowl over anyone in their way.
In the fourth quarter, the physical battle wore down Keaau while Honokaa kept running and scoring.
In the junior varsity, it was Honokaa 21, Keaau 6.
Keaau 6 0 6 6 — 18
Honokaa 7 9 0 29 — 45
First quarter
Hon — Paul Purdy 5 pass from Nainoa Falk (Preston Branco kick), 8:24
Keaau — Byron Cachola 10 pass from Richard Hatori-Kanakaole (run failed), 2:00
Second quarter
Hon — Safety (Quarterback slip in end zone), 7:02
Hon — Sione Epenesa 33 run (Branco kick), 2:25
Third quarter
Keaau — Maurice Smith 16 pass from Hatori-Kanakaole (kick failed), 4:28
Fourth quarter
Hon — Purdy 28 pass from Falk (Branco kick), 10:56
Keaau — Justin Quesada 1 run (pass failed), 4:30
Hon — Sione Epenesa 22 run (Branco kick), 3:15
Hon — Falk 40 run (Branco kick), 1:56
Hon — Josh Perry 7 pass from (Falk pass from Branco), 52.7
