It was three games in the making, but Kalani finally got over the hump and entered the win column with a resounding 57-24 win over McKinley at Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium.
Kalani entered Saturday night with a pair of one-possession losses, so the Falcons made sure that this one wouldn’t get away from them. They exploded for 43 first-half points, led by Seth Tina-Sobarano having a hand in five of Kalani’s six first-half touchdowns.
“Just everyone doing their job and wanting to win, it feels amazing,” the senior quarterback said. “Winning is always fun. We’re just going to keep pushing from here on out.”
Tina-Sobarano was an efficient 14-for-20, finishing with 302 passing yards and three touchdowns through the air with zero interceptions. On the ground, he rushed for 83 yards and two touchdowns. He often wowed the McKinley-partisan crowd with his deep ball, which displayed just the right combination of power and touch.
“It was exciting,” he said. “But I couldn’t do anything without my line and receivers doing their jobs.”
McKinley sophomore quarterback Alexandria Buchanan, who made history as the first girl to throw a touchdown pass in Hawaii last week, got her second straight starting nod for the Tigers. She finished 5-for-10 with 80 yards and an interception, including a perfectly placed 70-yard touchdown pass to Kaiwi Ahina in the second quarter.
“I was just as confident in my team as I was last week,” she said. “I’m 100 percent sure we did what we could and now we know what we need to fix.”
Ryu Yamane’s fumble recovery in the end zone with 6:12 remaining in the third quarter gave the Falcons their biggest lead of the game at 50-12, which also enabled the running clock. The Tigers scored a pair of touchdowns in the fourth quarter to close the gap, but Kalani’s Matthew Wu provided the last score of the game with a 34-yard interception return for a touchdown with 1:44 left to go.
The Tigers are still winless since 2013, while the Falcons are back in the OIA Division II hunt.
“It’s everything that we’ve been working for with the kids all summer,” Kalani coach Scott Melemai said. “Our first two games were very, very close and we could have won those, so it’s well deserved for them.”
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