Sophomore Blaine Hipa passed for 215 yards and four touchdowns to lead Campbell over O’Connor 47-35 in a rematch of last year’s battle with the Eagles. In 2018, Campbell went to Arizona and won 37-20.
“We had too many turnovers, and you can’t do that against a good team like this,” O’Connor coach Steve Casey said.
Casey’s connection to Campbell (2-3, 1-2 OIA Open) is Sabers coach Darren Johnson, who attended Arizona Western after starring at Kahuku. Casey was the wide receivers coach. Johnson later coached under Casey in 1989 before returning to the islands.
O’Connor, as in retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, dropped to 1-2 overall, but showed tremendous resilience. Down 20 points in the third quarter, Dylan Simonton continued to scramble and fire bullets all over the field. The senior quarterback finished with 383 yards, five touchdowns and four interceptions.
Campbell got a balanced attack, utilizing Bubbah Aina-Chaves (16 carries, 115 yards) and Sky Lactaoen (45 yards on 10 carries). Titus Mokiao-Atimalala, who received an offer from Utah on Thursday, finished with eight catches for 150 yards, including touchdown hauls of 62, 34 and 18 yards.
Campbell struck gold on its second series. Hipa found Zavier Ceruti on a play-action throw for a 5-yard TD.
On the next series, after O’Connor turned the ball over on downs, Hipa launched a bomb to Mokiao-Atimalala for the 62-yard TD and the Sabers led 14-0 early in the second quarter.
The visiting Eagles began to show some life offensively, but Mokiao-Atimalala returned an interception 44 yards across the grain for another TD. Campbell led 21-0 with 9:53 left in the first half.
O’Connor got on the scoreboard on a 4-yard TD pass from Simonton to Daymian Stewart.
Shace Paaaina’s interception gave Campbell possession of the ball at midfield, and on fourth-and-6, Hipa found Mokiao-Atimalala on a crossing route for a 34-yard catch-and-run TD with 41 seconds left until the half.
The Eagles went to intermission and talked about supporting each other more.
“We had a good talk at halftime about that,” Simonton said.
Aina-Chaves scored on a 21-yard TD to open the second half, but the Eagles didn’t quit.
