No. 8 Kailua 40, Nanakuli 14
Kailua ensured that the only thing Nanakuli would leave Alex Kane Stadium with was fool’s gold.
The host No. 8 Surfriders gave up the lead on a big play in the first quarter but hit the Golden Hawks with 34 straight points in an OIA Red victory on Saturday night.
The Golden Hawks answered the Surfriders’ opening score with a 90-yard strike from Nahum Kipi to Reno Curtis when Curtis got behind the defense and sprinted to paydirt.
After the momentary shock, Kailua reclaimed a 12-point lead by halftime to move to 3-0 for the second time in three seasons with coach Joseph Wong.
“It was kind of a wake-up call,” Wong said. “I wouldn’t have liked it to be such a long play, but it happened. … We made a mistake on coverage — it never happened again. So I like the way we responded.”
After that first magical connection, Kipi couldn’t recapture the mojo; he passed for 1 yard over his next 10 attempts, including two picks and an eight-throw incompletion streak.
Meanwhile, Kailua quarterback Aaron Mejia tossed two touchdowns among his eight completions and had no interceptions.
Dylan Kurahashi-Choy Foo had a 30-yard pick-6 in the second quarter for the Surfriders.
Kailua rolled up 357 yards on the ground, as it went to clock-killing mode in the third quarter, compared to Nanakuli’s 88.
“Like anything else, you gotta adjust or you die out there on the field,” Wong said.
Kailua sacked Kipi in the end zone in the fourth quarter to reach the 40-point mark, and Nanakuli’s Po‘okela Pi‘ilani took advantage of some flags to score from 7 yards to complete the scoring.
