It was like a punch in the gut.
Kapolei, on the fringes of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Top 10 all season, thumped Farrington 23-6 on Friday night. The Governors walked onto Kapolei’s home field ranked No. 6 and walked away with their second loss of the season in the OIA Blue.
The domination started early, and the big plays kept on coming for the 10th-ranked Hurricanes (4-3, 3-3), who had never beaten Farrington before in six tries.
"This is big," coach Darren Hernandez said. "We got this monkey off our back, finally beating Farrington (5-2, 4-2). Our kids acted like they won the Super Bowl there for a minute. But they worked so hard for this."
The Hurricanes led 16-0 at the half, but the Govs gained some momentum with 2:01 left in the third quarter when Bishop Rapoza connected with Kingston Moses-Sanchez for a 79-yard score. The visitors drove into Kapolei territory three times after that, but came up empty-handed. Jonathan Liana ended one Govs march with an interception of Rapoza, and then Jay Amina did the same on a pass by backup Justin Uahinui. This time, however, the pick put the final dagger into Farrington when Amina returned it 79 yards for a touchdown and the final 23-6 score with 3:12 to go.
Uahinui drove the Governors into Kapolei territory as time ran out.
"I was very happy with our defense," Hernandez said. "Other than that long TD pass, we played assignment football and did our jobs."
Farrington coach Randall Okimoto said his team was sloppy.
"We missed out on a lot of opportunities," he said. "And after a big loss (71-28 to Mililani on Sept. 17), I think we needed to start fast to gain that confidence back. When we didn’t start fast, it took a long time to get going and we were losing by that time. The way things were going, I told my team that we should have been down 35-0 at the half."
In the first quarter, Beau Meyer put Kapolei up 3-0 with a 28-yard field goal made possible by Ty Noah-Williams’ 49-yard left sideline catch of freshman quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa’s pass.
With the Kapolei defense hammering away at Farrington star running back Challen Faamatau and keeping him contained, the Govs’ offense stalled early. Faamatau ended up with 97 yards on 23 carries, but his longest gain was 20 and he was stuffed for small gains more often than not.
"We did this together," said Kapolei linebacker Omar Mareko, who along with fellow linebacker Rocky Savea played a big part in the run-stopping and the victory. "We were hungry to beat this team. We really wanted to win this game."
The Hurricanes boosted the score to 10-0 with 1:21 to go in the opening quarter, thanks to an 80-yard drive capped on Tagovailoa’s 3-yard over-the-middle TD pass to Jaymin Sarono.
L.J. Esperas finished Kapolei’s second 80-yard drive with 5:56 to go in the second quarter with a 4-yard TD run.
Two major stops by Kapolei’s defense kept Farrington off the board in the second quarter. Noah Punahou Mahelona recovered a fumble in his own end zone after Farrington had driven to the 1. Later, with 40 seconds left in the half, the Hurricanes stopped the Govs at the 11 on four downs.
"There was not enough communication with everybody on the line," Farrington center Malachi Louis-Molitau said. "We wanted it real bad. Come Monday, we’ll be practicing real hard. We’ll come back with full force."
