Kahuku’s backs grind out victory over McKinley

Watch out, OIA. Aofaga Wily has a running mate.

Wily needed 28 carries to gain 127 yards and a touchdown, and PJ Polikapu Liua added 116 yards on nine carries with two touchdowns as No. 1 Kahuku beat McKinley 35-6 at Kahuku on Friday.

Liua, the fullback who has helped Wily to 473 yards in three games this season, ran for first downs on the fullback dive off the option read on his first three carries and put it out of reach with a 51-yard touchdown in the third quarter. He broke five tackles on the run, refusing to be taken to the muddy turf.

"He’s tough, man," Kahuku coach Reggie Torres said. "He was running over people. It was an option read. It was a matter of making the right read. Sometimes we make the wrong read and force it to (Wily) like we did tonight."

The Tigers brought a stiff defense to Kahuku, stopping Wily short of 3 yards 14 times. They never held Liua below 3 yards.

Quarterback Viliami Livai struggled, going 1-for-9 for 27 yards and an interception returned for McKinley’s only score. But that’s OK; he fed the ball to Liua enough to get the win.

"I don’t usually get the ball that much," Liua said. "I block for (Wily), he looks good and I look good and we all look good."

For all of Kahuku’s 259 yards on the ground, the Red Raiders fought for every one of them against McKinley’s defense. The Tigers struggled just as much with Kahuku’s defense, though, being held to 109 yards.

Quarterback Denzel Kalahiki-Gasper, who threw for 275 yards against Kaimuki two weeks ago, hit Tyrell Tuiasasopo for a 45-yard gain with his second pass, but never had one longer than 9 yards the rest of the way.

Kahuku’s defense forced Kalahiki-Gasper to miss on his last 10 attempts, the last one an interception Kahuku returned to the house for its final score.

After a scoreless first quarter, Wily finally punched Kahuku into the end zone with a plunge from 1 yard out after a gift from the visitors.

McKinley had stopped Kahuku on its first five drives, forcing two fumbles, but couldn’t move the ball either.

The Tigers’ second fumble of the first half hurt most.

Tuiasasopo took a snap to punt but muffed it. He picked it up and tried to advance it, only to meet another wall of Red Raiders and fumble again. That gave Kahuku the ball at the 6-yard line and Wily needed two runs to get to paydirt.

Wily, the OIA’s leading rusher at 173 yards a game, was collared by McKinley with 57 yards on 15 carries in the first half.

But no matter — just as Farrington has dual threats, so does Kahuku.

The Red Raiders turned to the fullback dive on its next drive, with Liua getting the ball twice on McKinley’s half of the field, converting the second one for a 12-yard touchdown to make it 14-0. Liua had 39 yards on just three carries in the first half.

McKinley moves on to face Farrington and its tough running game next week, while the Red Raiders host Castle.

Don’t count Torres as completely happy with the win. Not when his team, which played without two starters on the offensive line, has 70 yards in penalties.

"We have got to fix that," Torres said. "We have to get better at that. We weren’t blocking as well as we should have, but the bottom line is McKinley is tough. They are really tough."