Two playoff games to decide MIL’s state football berths: D-I Friday, D-II Saturday

For football fans on Maui, this will be an exciting weekend with four high school teams battling for two state berths in the Hawaiʻi High School Athletic Association tournaments. 

It’s only the second time that the Maui Interscholastic League will have two football title games to determine spots in the state tourney.

First up is the Baldwin High Bears (6-2) taking on the Lahainaluna Lunas (5-4) for the Division I crown at 7 p.m. on Friday at King Kekaulike Stadium in Pukalani.

On Saturday, the Kamehameha Maui Warriors (6-3) will face the King Kekaulike Na Aliʻi (5-4) for the Division II title at War Memorial Stadium in Wailuku, also at 7 p.m.

Each MIL Division has three teams. In the first regular-season round, each team plays the other teams in the division once. They repeat the same format in the second regular-season round. If the same team wins both rounds, they are the champion. Only when different teams win each round of the division is there a title game.

This year, Lahainaluna won the first round in Division I with wins over Baldwin and Maui High, while Baldwin won the second round with wins over Lahainaluna and Maui High.

Kamehameha Maui won the MIL Division II first round with wins over Moloka’i and King Kekaulike. King Kekaulike won the second round in D-II with its win last week over Kamehameha Maui. Moloka’i forfeited its final two games in the second round.

The only other time two football title games were held in the Maui Interscholastic League in the same year was in 2015 when Baldwin beat Maui High 56-7 for the Division I title and Lahainaluna beat Kamehameha Maui 14-10 for the Division II crown.

At practice Monday, King Kekaulike head coach Tyson Valle said: “Nothing is promised to anybody, but we knew that if we worked hard, we did our job, we executed on the field, we knew that we would force a playoff game or we’d have a chance to force it. So yeah, it feels good to be here.”

King Kekaulike forced the D-II playoff game with a 16-14 win over Kamehameha Maui last Friday night. The Warriors won the first matchup 30-12 on Oct. 4.

King Kekaulike sophomore wide receiver Cason Brooke added a new wrinkle to Na Aliʻi’s offense last Friday with some key catches from quarterback Kingston Goliday, also a sophomore.

“We knew that we had some opportunities throwing the ball, which is definitely out of our comfort zone,  but it did play a big factor,” Valle said.

Valle also said the game plan also included working the clock to keep the ball away from the explosive Warriors’ offense.

“We knew if we could keep their offense off the field it would help us out,” he said. “It definitely put us in the competition. … (and) We just got lucky on a few calls; the ball bounced our way; and we were able to get some points on the board.”

Goliday, a 6-foot, 145-pounder who stepped in when Cove Campas and Kanoa Kuailani were banged up, said many of the Upcountry players on each team know each other from playing Pop Warner football for the Kulamalu Cowboys.

“It’s been fun, been a lot of wild rides and just hard work,” Goliday said, adding that he has played football since he was 4 years old. “This is the biggest game that I have played in yet.”

The Baldwin vs. Lahainaluna title game is taking place because the Bears beat the Lunas 7-3 on Oct. 11 and then wrapped up the D-I second-round crown with a 41-0 shutout of Maui High on Oct. 18.

Lahainaluna defeated Baldwin 24-7 on Sept. 20 on its way to winning the D-I first round.

Kamehameha Maui played in the D-II state title game in 2021 and 2023. King Kekaulike played in the D-II title game in 2022 after it suffered through a 4-55 record from 2014 to 2021.

“I mean, from where we were before up until where we are now, both programs have grown dramatically,” Valle said. “We’re getting better. We’re competing with a lot bigger schools.”

Kamehameha Maui head coach Ulima Afoa said his team will be ready to bounce back this week from the loss to King Kekaulike. He said the team doesn’t have to do a lot differently, just execute better.

“You can’t get off to a slow start and you can’t miss so many tackles,” he said. “We just have to continue to do what we do, but we have to do what we do better.”

After missing last week’s game for undisclosed reasons, Kamehameha Maui sophomore running back Kaikea Hueu is expected to play this week, Afoa said. Running mate Zedekiah Campbell, a junior, had several impressive runs last Friday against Na Aliʻi.

“Zede played well,” Afoa said. “One of the things that we can do is we can run the ball. We should be able to with our five guys up front.”

Baldwin will be seeking its first state berth since 2019, with Antone Sanches at quarterback for the fifth straight game. Sanches, the son of former Bears standout and coach Kyle Sanches and the grandson of veteran Baldwin track and field coach Gary Sanches, missed the first part of the season with a neck injury.

Although Baldwin won only one game in his first three seasons, Antone Sanches said he had a good feeling entering his senior season.

“From the beginning of the year we already knew we were gonna do something,” Antone Sanches said.

When Sanches was told that Lahainaluna hasn’t missed a state tournament since 2006, he said, “Oh, that’s when I was born.”

Sanches said the buzz in school Monday was palpable for the biggest game of this decade for the team.

“I had teachers telling me that we gotta win,” Sanches said. “That’s how you know that it’s important because you have guys that I’ve never, like teachers that I’ve never talked to, that are telling me how to win this game. And, so, OK, we have to win.”

Baldwin coach Cody Nakamura said he knows the Lunas will come out ready to play. The Lunas were on the Baldwin 6-yard line late in the Bears’ Oct. 11 victory before a bad snap led to a 16-yard loss and the drive stalled out.

Baldwin went 0-17 during Nakamura’s first two years on the job at his alma mater before this year’s breakout season. He reminded his team of what an honor it was to still be practicing on Monday after they turned in their uniforms before Halloween each of the last two seasons.

“Of course that feels a lot better practicing in a championship week,” Nakamura said. “So again, coming from where we’ve been, it’s kind of important to point that out, but also we’ve got a huge task ahead of us. So just a quick little note to the boys so they know and then we get to work.”

Knowing that Lahainaluna is a well-coached and well-disciplined team that will come out hard, Nakamura said his team needs to do the same thing: “Be disciplined, coach them up as best we can, and the boys go out there and do their thing.”

The Lunas saw their 46-game, 8-year Maui Interscholastic League win streak broken this season. The Lunas are hoping their streak of going to 16 straight state tournaments, including the last three in Division I, will continue.

“It’s for everything, the kids realize that,” Lahainaluna coach Dean Rickard said. “We still have a chance to get into the championship and that is something that we set as a goal since last season when we lost (29-28) to Kapaʻa (in the state tournament).

“So, the goal and the mission is the same. The way we look at it is the MIL has always been a good proving ground to get to states and in no other year than this year has that been more true.”