The stars were aligned just right. Or so it seemed.

The University of Hawaii football and women’s volleyball teams were on the road. The men’s basketball team was playing in a tournament in Laie.

Other than Rainbow Wahine basketball games in the afternoon, UH’s lower campus was free of organized sports events Friday and Saturday.

And, since the Hawaii High School Athletic Association football championships were scheduled for those nights, wasn’t UH’s Ching Complex the perfect place to play them? (Or, at least the best available, since Aloha Stadium is defunct.)

A big crowd was expected Friday for the Open Division championship game, pitting defending champion Kahuku against Punahou.

Afterward, the first question, of course, was, “Who won?”

That would be Kahuku, 20-0.

Next question:

“How come they didn’t play at UH?”

That one’s a little tougher to answer, because it seems like a no-brainer that Manoa is where it should have been. With Aloha Stadium (capacity: 50,000) out of the picture, the Ching Complex with its 9,000-plus seats is the largest venue on Oahu for football.

Instead, the game was played at a facility with half as many seats to sell, and the HHSAA had sold all 4,500 tickets available for purchase at Mililani’s John Kauinana Stadium by Friday morning.

“I had asked about that several times,” Punahou coach Nate Kia said. “I’m not sure how it was decided we would play at Mililani. I don’t know what the logistics and politics are. I do know that when Punahou and Kahuku play for the state championship it’s a big draw.”

A lot of other things have changed a lot in 10 years, but Kia is right — the last time these schools met in the final, in 2012, more than 20,000 watched in person at Aloha Stadium.

If anything, Kahuku’s rabid fan base is even bigger than it was then. What used to be called the Red Wave is now the Red Sea.

“My players are even asking,” Kahuku coach Sterling Carvalho said. “Why is it not at UH? Even last year at Farrington. You know, the Red Sea has a huge following.

“It’s not like (the seniors) will have a second chance. And this is a special class. I don’t think it’s overestimating them to call them a generational class.”

It’s impossible to estimate how many more fans would have come if more tickets were available, Carvalho said.

“Many within our community. Not just immediate family, aunties, uncles, sisters. A lot would have flown in from outer islands, even the mainland, combine it with Thanksgiving. But there’s not tickets.”

Punahou is about a mile from UH. Of course, since it’s a private school, the Buffanblu fan base lives all over the island. But many are close, in East Honolulu, and even closer, in Manoa.

“To limit who can come and can’t come, that’s pretty hard,” Carvalho said. “For a lot of these guys, when they’re done playing high school, they’re done playing.”

And, for those who will be playing college ball in the future, not everyone with Division I talent is locked up by a Power Five conference program. Both teams have several uncommitted players who could possibly be swayed toward Manoa.

“It would’ve been a great opportunity for the University of Hawaii, and all the players,” Kia said. “It seems odd.”

It was also strange for coaches to have to politely ask spectators in line for the limited restroom facilities if their players could go first.

“We had to do that several times,” Carvalho said. “Before the game, halftime and after.”

So, what happened? Or didn’t happen?

HHSAA executive director Chris Chun approached UH months before the game, but the financials didn’t work out, he said.

On the surface, it would seem that selling 9,000 tickets instead of 4,500 would mean twice as much profit for the HHSAA to distribute to its member schools.

But that’s looking at just half of the equation. Expenses playing at UH would have been much higher than at a school field, especially parking — the revenue from which the UH athletic department doesn’t get, even for its own games.

“I love working with UH,” Chun said. “We hold a lot of our championships there. But when it comes to football I have to be especially fiscally responsible.”

UH always waives rent for HHSAA championships, including girls volleyball and cheerleading in recent weeks, a university official said.

But at Ching, the HHSAA would be responsible for costs inherent to the facility having been refurbished from a practice field into the Warriors’ home field until the new Aloha Stadium is built. That includes portable toilets, hand-washing stations and safety lights, university officials said.

Also, some of the same inconveniences of playing championship games at high school fields exist at Ching — like a lack of locker rooms. At least, though, it would be a neutral site. What if semifinalist Mililani had advanced to the championship game?

HHSAA and UH leaders said they want to try to make football state championships at Ching a reality.

“There are significant issues,” Chun said. “We’d have to work out the parking costs.”

While the challenges are numerous, they hardly seem insurmountable, given time to work them out. If these two state entities with a long history of cooperation in staging other prep sports events start on them now, maybe state high school football championships can be where they should be by next season — well, where they should be until UH and big high school games are at that shiny new Aloha Stadium, whenever that turns out to be.