HONOKAA — Konawaena fell behind for a quarter, but reeled off seven unanswered touchdowns to down Honokaa 49-7 and spoil homecoming night for the Dragons.
With the victory, the Wildcats (4-1 BIIF, 5-1 overall) locked up a spot in the BIIF Division II championship game on the weekend of Oct. 21-22.
Konawaena quarterback Austin Ewing led the way with five total touchdowns — four passing and one rushing. He completed 14 of his 24 passes for 196 yards.
The Wildcats racked up 177 yards of rushing offense, led by an 89-yard effort from senior back Micah Laban.
Honokaa (1-4, 2-4) had some success early but finished with less than 150 yards of total offense. Quarterback Ocean Guerpo-Beamer was 5 of 23 for 72 yards with two interceptions.
A noisy homecoming crowd and sideways rain set the scene, and Honokaa got going out of the gate with a few first downs before eventually being forced to punt.
However, the Dragons were gifted some great field position when Konawaena muffed the kick at its own 20. The Dragons recovered the ball, and a few plays later, Paki Akau bullied his way in from two yards out.
Konawaena had to wait until nearly the midway mark of the first quarter to get the ball, but didn’t waste any time once they did. Ewing connected on his first four passes, finishing the quick drive with a 16-yard strike to Kaanoi Rivera-Kelekolio.
Honokaa struggled to move and hang onto the ball. Most of that was due to Konawaena pass rushers — especially Kanoa Gladden and Paka Cacoulidis — causing havoc in the backfield. After corralling the snap, Guerpo-Beamer was usually on the run, eventually finding a swarm in Konawaena white in his way.
After starting a perfect 6-of-6, Ewing missed his next seven passes before getting on track with a 9-yard completion to Jeremiah Casuga Llanes Kuahuia-Pabre. The junior quarterback then opted for a familiar target in Kamakana Ching, who found a hole between two Dragon defenders in the corner of the end zone to give the Wildcats their first lead of the night.
Despite the lopsided score, Honokaa did something no team had been able to do in the month of September — pick off Ewing. Looking to go up two scores, Zach Carvalho stepped in front of Ewing’s pass for the interception. But the Dragons couldn’t do much with it, and gave it back just a few plays later on a fumble.
The Wildcats quickly got to the goal line, and after a few tries, finally found pay dirt on a rugby scrum touchdown, plowing over the goal line to go up 21-7 at the break.
The second half was all Wildcats, starting with a 75-yard kick return by Tyler Kahananui out of the break. Ewing did the rest, rolling out and finding a wide-open Cacoulidis on a short route to make it 28-7.
Konawaena defenders Michael Banagan-Brock and Jeriah Cacal came up with picks to stymie Honokaa’s first two drives. Both were flipped into passing TDs by Ewing to force a running clock.
The Wildcats kept it grounded the rest of the way, with Laban scoring on a fourth quarter run to put an exclamation point on the victory.
