BY Honolulu
The real winner of Saturday’s Interscholastic League of Honolulu Open Division game between Saint Louis and Punahou was nowhere on the field.
Punahou’s 33-28 stunner over Saint Louis at the Crusaders’ Kalaepohaku campus meant that there would be no playoff for the ILH championship that many expected.
Instead, the league’s lone Open Division state berth will go to Kamehameha. The idle Warriors finished 3-1 in ILH play, while defending state champion Saint Louis went 2-2, its season suddenly over when its comeback bid from a 20-point halftime hole fell short. Punahou was winless (0-3) in league until its rousing road upset keyed by sophomore quarterback Hunter Fujikawa.
It is the first time since 2009 that Kamehameha qualified for states.
Kamehameha, under third-year coach Kaeo Drummundo, upset Tupu Alualu and the Crusaders, 28-21 on Oct. 4, a critical outcome in retrospect, even after Saint Louis came back to rout Kamehameha 35-7 in the teams’ next meeting.
The Warriors qualified in 2009 under-then head coach David Stant, now the offensive coordinator at Kahuku. The Red Raiders have clinched a state Open berth out of the OIA.
That year held significance for Saint Louis, too, as it was the last time a varsity football game was played on its campus, in which future NFL quarterback Marcus Mariota made an appearance as a backup in a rout of Word of Life Academy. The Crusaders are heading toward playing games on campus regularly with no stadium in Halawa until at least 2029 and OIA schools withdrawing their neutral sites.
The Warriors are two-time HHSAA Division I champions (2004, 2009), but their Nov. 21 HHSAA semifinal will be their first in the Open Division, which was created in 2016. Kamehameha has never lost a state tournament game.
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