The losing streak is finally over at McKinley High School. Before Friday’s 22-0 victory at Waialua, the Tigers hadn’t won a varsity football game since 2013.

McKinley had lost 29 in a row, including the first five games of this season.

Earlier this year McKinley made news — national news — by starting a girl, Alexandria Buchanan, at quarterback.

I always figured a girl would eventually become a quarterback at some Hawaii high school, since our state is full of athletic girls and they’ve been playing youth football for a long time now.

Also, there have been plenty of female varsity kickers and a few position players over the years. Most notable was Chelsey-Ann Kaimi, who played slotback at Nanakuli in 2000 and scored the first touchdown by a girl playing varsity football in Hawaii.

But what especially drew my attention to Buchanan as a story is that as just a sophomore she gets significant playing time at the sport’s leadership position. That’s the main reason I wrote about her two weeks ago.

Other reasons are that she is a 4.0 student, president of her class, and involved in other positive activities at McKinley. She’s been described, aptly, as a well-rounded role model for other student-athletes.

The attention that Buchanan has gotten has been mostly applauded. As the first girl to throw a touchdown pass in a game in Hawaii, she’s rightly recognized widely as a pioneer.

But a few anonymous online commenters have expressed displeasure with the idea of a girl playing high school football, or at least being noticed for doing so. One of the sentiments is that this is unfair to other players at McKinley, especially seniors who had struggled so long without any wins on the playing field to show for it.

It’s also been implied that the coach’s decision to promote Buchanan from the junior varsity and start her at quarterback four games ago was a publicity stunt instead of the result of an objective assessment of the players available.

I find that to be illogical for a couple of reasons — one being this: Why would the coach of a team that hasn’t won a game in more than three seasons want publicity, and at the expense of his team’s potential improvement?

Also, Pat Silva, a McKinley graduate who has coached high school and college football since the 1970s, is not the kind of coach who calls reporters trying to sell stories. In fact, when I inquired about doing the initial column about Buchanan, he was slightly apprehensive.

Leadership quality

But as he talked about Buchanan, it quickly became clear that Silva, a former McKinley quarterback himself, believes in her ability — not just as a player, but as a leader, and someone that the Tigers football program can grow with as one of its leaders in the coming years.

I believe Silva when he said he and his assistants determined Buchanan was the best option for the program to start based on how the quarterbacks performed in practice. It’s a common practice for a team trying to build a new, winning identity to start young players, especially at a leadership position like quarterback.

Buchanan didn’t ask for publicity, either — but she does fully understand it can come with playing quarterback, and she handles the attention with more poise than most adults would.

In her second year of tackle football, she has thrown more interceptions than touchdown passes. Buchanan is far from the perfect quarterback. Few high school sophomores are anywhere close to their potential.

Quarterback option

At this point, when Buchanan is in the game the Tigers don’t call quarterback runs, and they also use another quarterback, Nuu Koli, who is better at throwing long passes.

Koli came in and threw a touchdown pass to Kaiwi Ahina in the win against Waialua. It was a complete team effort for McKinley, and Buchanan did her part, co-directing the Tigers offense from behind center with Koli.

Football is a team game, and that’s how McKinley won Friday. Linemen, quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, special teams … they all played well. And the defense was especially outstanding, intercepting five passes in allowing no points by the Bulldogs.

A win like that with so many players and position groups contributing is a bonding experience, and that’s precisely what a program like McKinley’s needs. It helps emphasize that everyone on the team has a specific job to do — in this case, even a sophomore girl, who happens to play the sport’s most visible position.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.