Last season, Kamehameha came within roughly 18 inches from winning at Konawaena.
The first order of business for the Warriors this season isn’t about lessening the distance between winning or losing, but rather the distance between Keaau and Kealakekua.
Why travel 90-plus miles when you don’t have to travel at all?
Home field in the BIIF Division II football championship game is at stake at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Paiea Stadium in what will only be the first round between the Warriors and Wildcats. Konawaena (5-0 BIIF, 5-2) can clinch home field with a victory, while Kamehameha (4-1, 6-2) can do the same with wins against the Wildcats and Honokaa in its regular-season finale.
“I think we’re to the point right now, if we play mistake-free football, we’re pretty tough to beat,” Kamehameha coach Dan Lyons said.
Ah, but there’s the rub, those pesky mistakes. They’ve haunted Kamehameha all season.
Miscues crept in last Friday against Hilo on the Warriors’ first offensive play from scrimmage when they were called for a delay of game. Two penalties aided Hilo’s first touchdown drive and the big blow was a botched center-to-quarterback exchange. The Vikings turned the fumble recovery into the go-ahead score and a 28-14 victory.
The return of first-string quarterback Kaimi Like, who was sick last week, should help, but Lyons knows that while the Warriors got away with a sloppy performance at Kealakehe and they shrugged off nine turnovers against Hawaii Prep, that won’t fly against Konawaena, which has won five of the past six Division II titles.
“When we give three, four or five mistakes to the other teams, not always a turnover, but a situational mistake, against good teams, those good teams are going to take advantage of every mistake,” Lyons said.
Konawaena carries a 12-game BIIF winning streak, with two of those wins coming last season at the expense of Kamehameha. Konawaena cruised 35-13 in the regular-season finale, but the Warriors seemed to do a much better job defending standout quarterback Austin Ewing in the title game, which the Wildcats won 27-23 after intercepting Like in the end zone in the final seconds.
It should be noted that both those games were in Kealakekua.
Still, the only extra emphasis this week in practice was on attention to detail.
“We have to keep working on the little things we have to do to get better,” Lyons said. “Working on a lot of shifts and motion (against Hilo), and for the most part what we did really caused fits for Hilo.”
The work-in-progress offense also has caused some growing pains in terms of penalties and turnovers.
“Those are things we need to clean up and quite honestly these are things we are just now working on,” Lyons said. “I expected it to be a little rough.”
Led by sack-happy Jashen Mathieu, the Warriors’ defense is a finished product, only giving points to Hilo as a result of turnovers or big plays from Kahale Huddleston.
One week after trying to stop Huddleston, the presumptive BIIF Division I Offensive Player of the Year, the Warriors take their first of two turns going up against Ewing, the league’s reigning Division-II POY.
Every coach talks about trying to keep Ewing from making plays out the pocket, and in the 2016 title game, the Warriors did a decent job of slowing his first read on pass plays.
“He’s so dynamic, he moves around with confidence and is not afraid to make plays,” Lyons said. “I think we just have to play great defense. We have great athletes on the defensive side of the ball.
“We are going to just try and contain him.”
It should be noted that the Warriors’ only title the last six seasons, in 2014, came when they played Konawaena at home in the title game.
With a win Friday, Kamehameha will host Round 2, Oct. 21 or 22.
