Mililani earns top seed with rout

The OIA West belongs to the Trojans.

No. 3 Mililani wrapped up the division’s No. 1 seed in the OIA Red playoffs with a rare 44-14 blowout of No. 10 Leilehua on homecoming night at John Kauinana Stadium.

The Trojans (6-1, 5-0) and Mules (4-3, 2-3) had split their past 10 meetings, with eight of them decided by a touchdown or less.

That wasn’t the case on Friday night, as the Trojans earned their largest margin of victory in the series dating back to a 31-0 win in 2003.

"Leilehua has got heart, and the way you take that heart away is to run the ball, to pound the ball," Mililani coach Rod York said. "We did that. Our defense played well and, shoot, look at the scoreboard, the kids did well."

Quarterback McKenzie Milton finished 9-for-16 for 129 yards and a touchdown in one half of work. Meanwhile, the OIA West’s leading rusher, sophomore Vavae Malepeai, had 116 yards and three touchdowns on 23 carries.

Mililani has won its past 10 regular-season OIA games, which is its longest such streak since winning 14 in a row from 2003 to 2005.

A win over Aiea next week would mark its first perfect OIA regular season since 2004, when the Trojans went 10-0 before losing to Kahuku in the OIA title game.

"We still got Aiea next week and we’re 0-0 right now trying to be 1-0 after the Aiea game," said Milton, who also ran for 61 of the team’s 206 rushing yards.

Leilehua has lost three of four and has dropped three league games for the first time since 2007, when it rebounded to win its final six games, ending with a state title.

"Our coaches have to take the blame, but you can’t take anything away from Mililani, man; they’re definitely the class of the West," Leilehua coach Nolan Tokuda said. "For us, we have to go back as a coaching staff and as a team and bounce back, learn from this, learn from the mistakes we made and correct them for the playoffs."

Mililani needed just two offensive plays to take a 7-0 lead, as Milton followed a 45-yard run by Malepeai with a 25-yard touchdown run to put the Trojans on the board just 30 seconds in.

Neither team scored again in the first quarter before Mililani blew the game open, outscoring Leilehua 23-7 in the second.

Fullback Dayton Furuta, who doubles as a linebacker, scored on a 1-yard touchdown run and Malepeai cashed in on his 11th rushing TD of the season from 4 yards out.

Milton hit Kalakaua Timoteo with a 4-yard touchdown pass with 13 seconds left before intermission to put the Trojans up 30-7 at the break.

Quarterback Mack Eberhardt was intercepted by Mililani safety Ian Namu twice in the third quarter, which led to two Malepeai touchdown runs, giving Mililani its largest lead of the game at 44-7.

"We’re primarily a run team," Milton said. "I said it last week — one of the best O-lines in the state and one of the best running backs in (Malepeai)."

The 35-point running clock was in effect midway through the fourth quarter until a late touchdown pass of 21 yards from Kalanimoku Pauole to Austinn Nagao made it 44-14 with 4:03 left.

The Mules end their regular season next Friday at Waipahu.