WAIMEA — The offense wasn’t really working, but Hawaii Prep found enough ways to score against Kohala, which kept giving away the football, making for a frustrating afternoon.
HPA forced six turnovers, scored twice on pick-sixes and overwhelmed the Cowboys 45-6 in a BIIF Division II game on Saturday, providing additional evidence that the former eight-man schools still have a long climb.
Ka Makani’s offense struggled. The ground game produced just 47 yards on 23 carries. Quarterback Umi Kealoha went 2 of 8 for 28 yards, but he accounted for three touchdowns, a 20-yard scoring strike to Zachary Machold and a pair of TD runs.
HPA coach Kaluka Maiava was happy with the win, not pleased with the execution and can’t wait to watch film and correct mistakes.
“It was a slow and steady win. It was not our best football,” he said. “We allowed them to control the ball longer than we wanted and didn’t come out with our usual fire. We can’t wait to watch film and make corrections and get better for next week.
“I liked that we did pick up the pace. We didn’t regress. Ideally, we want to come out 100 mph on the coin toss.”
HPA (2-0 BIIF, 2-0 overall) didn’t have any sustained drives but was able to flip the field position, thanks to punter Conor Hunt, who drilled a 48-yard field goal in the first quarter.
That was right before Jakob Honda scored on an 80-yard interception return. The Cowboys threw a lateral, the ball bounced on the field, and Honda picked up the live ball and easily scored.
From there it turned into Murphy’s Law for the Cowboys. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.
Kohala (0-1 BIIF, 0-2 overall) also couldn’t generate much of an offense. The rushing attack went for negative 38 yards on 25 carries, suffering huge losses on three sacks. Quarterback Kona Ledward was 3 of 10 for 15 yards and three interceptions.
Both teams played tough run defense. The flip side of that, after film watching, could be that the offensive line didn’t fire off the ball and hold its blocks well. It’ll make for intensive film watching come correction Monday.
In the second quarter, Kohala had a punt blocked, HPA took over from the 2 and two plays later Jordan Hanano scored from 1 yard out.
The Cowboys had their lone highlight on the next play. On the ensuing kickoff, Zhane Ellazar-Ching picked up the ball at the 1 and weaved his way down the field for a 99-yard touchdown return.
On Kohala’s next series, there was a fumble, Braeden Samura recovered the ball, and Kealoha threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Machold, taking advantage of the red-zone gift.
The next time the Cowboys got the ball back, Javan Perez snagged an interception on the first play from scrimmage. One player later, Kealoha waltzed into the end zone on an 11-yard run for a 38-6 halftime lead.
In the third quarter, Tain Lawson recovered a fumble in the red zone, and two player later Kealoha scored on a 12-yard run to get the mercy-clock going.
On Kohala’s next series, Justin Lina snagged an interception for HPA, which had zero giveaways.
Maiava liked the way contributed to the win. He didn’t have any turnovers and scored three times, making plays when he needed to.
“Umi plays tough,” Maiava said. “He’s everywhere for us, special teams, offense, defense. He works hard and is all-around player. I respect his play.”
Kohala also has much to clean up. The Cowboys had too many low snaps, shanked punts and turnovers.
“We were giving away the ball in the red zone and giving points away,” Kohala coach Chad Atkins said. “Without all that, I feel like we would have been right in the game.
“Coming from the eight-man league, all we can do is try to be competitive. But today we gave the ball away too much.”
Kohala 0 6 0 0 — 6
HPA 10 28 7 0 — 45
First quarter
HPA — Jakob Honda 80 interception return (Conor Hunt kick)
HPA — FG 48 Hunt
Second quarter
HPA — Jordan Hanano 1 run (Hunt kick)
Koh — Zhane Ellazar-Ching 99 kickoff return (kick no good)
HPA — Zachary Machold 20 pass from Umi Kealoha (Hunt kick)
HPA — Javan Perez 25 interception return (Hunt kick)
HPA — Kealoha 11 run (Hunt kick)
Third quarter
HPA – Kealoha 12 run (Hunt kick)
