Even after leading Castle to perhaps its most successful season since 2002, coach John Hao admits that he still “bleeds blue and red.”
Hao quarterbacked at Saint Louis in the late 1980s, back when the Crusaders were in the midst of the most dominant stretch in the state’s history, racking up 55 consecutive wins from 1985 to 1990. He was also the head coach at Kalaepohaku from 2008 to 2009.
Ideally, he’d like his teams to throw the ball. It’s what this year’s Knights prepared to do in the offseason. But after an 0-4 start in Year 2, it was time for a temporary change.
“We weren’t moving the chains, we weren’t scoring, so we had to try something different,” Hao said. “Either that or we’re gonna go our whole season without the offense producing.”
The team had a meeting, and Hao opened up the quarterback competition to the whole team. That’s when senior running back Senituli Punivai stepped up and said he was ready even though he had never played the position.
“My thought process was, if we’re going to win a game, put the ball in the best athlete’s hands,” Hao said. “And that was Tuli.”
From that point forward, it was out with the run-and-shoot concepts, in with the elephant formations. Hao spent two seasons as Kahuku’s offensive coordinator from 2015 to 2016 and molded the Castle offense in a similar fashion to when Kesi Ah-Hoy ran the Red Raiders to the state title in 2015.
For a person whose first name in Tongan translates to “century,” Punivai was welcome to the change.
“I was born in 2000, it was like a new generation,” Punivai said. “My name means century. It’s like a new beginning.”
The Knights won their next four games and then eliminated previously undefeated Moanalua from the OIA Division I playoffs.
Punivai became the state’s breakout player of the year in the process. His signature performance came against Na Menehune, when he rushed for 231 yards and three touchdowns. He led Castle to its first appearance in the OIA championship game since 2002, but the team fell to Waipahu 32-3 on Friday.
He finished his season with 1,247 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns, second in the entire state behind St. Francis’ Jonan Aina-Chaves, who ran for 1,289 yards and 15 touchdowns. But Punivai’s role wasn’t defined until the season was almost halfway over.
Punivai also threw for 523 yards and six touchdowns on 33-for-63 passing and caught eight passes for 29 yards. He says he’s unsure of where he’ll go to college, but he wants to keep playing football and will pray about it.
“I just want to thank all my lineman, my defense for just giving me my opportunities. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be in this position right now,” he said. “So I’d just like to thank my coaching, my defense for getting that ball back, and for my linemen and receivers for blocking for me to get the yardage.”
Life prepared Punivai for this season’s turns. He hasn’t lived with either parent for a decade. Punivai was born on Oahu but moved to Tonga for the early parts of his childhood. His parents weren’t allowed to re-enter the country because of complications with their Tongan citizenships. A year after he moved back to Kahaluu, his father passed away.
“I didn’t get a chance to visit him and say my last word, but I just gotta stay strong and keep working hard. I dedicated this season to him,” Punivai said. “I was really close with him. He taught me a lot of things. I really miss him a lot.”
Although he has regular contact with his mother, he still misses her, too.
“She’ll always call me and talk to me. She gives me motivation to stay strong and put in the work, and listen to my brothers,” he said. “Just giving me that talk as a mom and telling me to do the right things.”
As the youngest of six brothers, Senituli lives with Tevita, the eldest brother. Tevita and his wife, Darrellyn, have been Senituli’s caretakers ever since he moved back to the United States.
“I’m the oldest of the brothers and that’s my duty — to watch my siblings. That was my responsibility to get Tuli to graduate and have a future,” Tevita said. “It’s not only me he has, it’s the whole family, too. It takes a village to raise a child. Definitely.”
Now that Hao has had a few days to process Castle’s season, he says he’s proud of how his boys handled the early adversity.
The Knights needed a quarterback. What they got out of Punivai was so much more.
“I wish that I had 52 of him. I got a bunch of other kids that think the same way and it’s a culture change, and we’re headed in the right direction,” Hao said. “Ultimately, it should never be about a player, it should never be about a coach. It’s always about what’s best for the team.
“Tuli has that thought process in his head and it spread like wildfire. It was contagious. More and more of our team players bought in. They were buying into what our philosophies were as a team and getting the kids to play all as one.”
SENITULI PUNIVAI
>> Class: Senior
>> Height: 5-11
>> Weight: 170
>> Positions: Quarterback (favorite), running back, receiver, linebacker, quarterback
>> Other sports: Track & field (300-meter hurdles, pole vault, 4×100 relay). He says he’ll go out for the basketball and baseball teams.
>> Favorite show: “Arrow” on Netflix
>> Favorite artist: J Boog
>> On the team’s season: “It started off with team bonding in the summer. We were sitting down in the gym. Me and my friends were looking up and the banner only said ‘2002.’ We said ‘Wow, man, we need one this year.’ We put in that work, we made it that far. Waipahu’s a good team, they came in prepared.”
