Konawaena junior receiver Kaiea Thomas was released from the hospital and will be fine, Wildcats coach Brad Uemoto said.
Thomas went down with a back injury with 58 seconds left in Kahuku’s 13-0 win over Konawaena at Carlton E. Weimer Field on the North Shore on Saturday night.
Thomas stayed down on the field for 20 minutes after the end of the contest, was carried off on a stretcher and placed in an ambulance. He made the team’s 11 a.m. flight back home with the varsity.
It was an eventful trip to the North Shore for the Wildcats, who slept in the Kahuku gym.
Like a lot of Hawaii teams, Konawaena schedules aggressively, opening the season with a 35-0 loss to Punahou and hosting Long Beach Poly last season. Uemoto brought the Wildcats to Kahuku in 2018, losing 61-9.
“We don’t take these games out of arrogance, we take them for an experience,” Uemoto said. “I know at the end of the day (Kahuku coach) Sterling (Carvalho) takes care of us and there is no ill will in terms of beating us down or anything like that. They coach good football and that is usually the safest football for us.”
Kahuku treated the game largely as a scrimmage, giving three quarterbacks snaps and having nine backs tote the rock on a combined 35 attempts. Beau Pruett led the ground game with 60 yards on 11 carries and Troy Mariteragi fueled the passing game with 51 yards on 12 throws and a touchdown to Jayden Tagaloa. They started two sophomores on the offensive line.
“Technically our season doesn’t start until the middle of September,” Carvalho said. “It’s still a month away. If you think about it, we only got pads at the end of (July). We are still trying to figure things out and stay healthy. If you look across the state after 2-3 weeks everybody already got kids down.”
The Red Raiders, who improved to 2-1 after a 33-7 loss at national power Bishop Gorman, still have plenty to work on. Carvalho said the Red Raiders abandoned the run the first two weeks and wanted to get back at it despite staying in the shotgun. They were held to 2.7 yards per carry against the stiff Wildcats, were sacked four times on 19 pass attempts and were penalized 13 times for 118 yards. Two of the whistles were encroachment on third-and-short to give Konawaena first downs.
Despite that, the defense is as good as ever at this point in a season. Madden Soliai registered the first points on a 15-yard interception return in the initial quarter and the Red Raiders held the Wildcats to just 112 yards, four of them on the ground on 22 rushes. Soliai added 77 yards on two punt returns.
“Our defense is definitely our strength,” Carvalho said. “That’s where our blue chip players are, that is what Kahuku is known for, defense and special teams. They just continue to shine every night.”
Kahuku hosts Waimea next week and Konawaena (1-2) visits Kealakehe before hosting Hilo in two weeks for their first home game.
Other big winners in the third week of the season were Campbell with a 49-17 win at Punahou, Kamehameha with a 31-20 win at Warren of California, Saint Louis with a 49-0 win over Kamehameha-Maui, Waipahu over winless Waianae 20-13 and Farrington 42-0 over Rancho Mirage (Calif.).
Next weekend’s top clashes include Saint Louis visiting Farrington and Waipahu heading up the hill to play Kamehameha on Friday, with Mililani traveling to Nevada to take on Liberty on Saturday.
Konawaena is just one of a number of Hawaii teams boarding an airplane to take on tough challenges in the preseason. The Wildcats beat Leilehua in Wahiawa 28-19 last year and St. Francis 23-22 in 2016. It helped Konawaena win a state title on Oahu in 2022 with a 38-28 win over Waipahu at Mililani in the title tilt.
“It gives your team a sense of what discipline and good football looks like,” Uemoto said. “What it does for the rest of the season is it slows everything down, you are never going to see that guy in front of you that fast and that good with that much discipline. For us, we take it as a learning tool.”
