Kamehameha Maui wins first state football championship with 37-14 victory over Kaiser

The huge smile on the face of 6-foot-4, 295-pound offensive lineman Pa’u Spencer said it all on Saturday as he FaceTimed his older brother Kale Spencer to share in the celebration on Oʻahu.

Kamehameha Schools Maui had just defeated Kaiser 37-14 at John Kauinana Stadium on the campus of Mililani High School to win its First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Division II state football championship in school history,

“He’s going to be real jealous, but he’ll be proud because this was for him and the seniors last year,” Pa’u Spencer said about his older brother, who now is a standout volleyball player for Long Island University in New York.

The Warriors had made it to the title game in two of the previous three years, but lost 61-7 to Kapa’a, in 2021 and a heartbreaking 31-28 to Waimea last year.

Kamehameha Maui’s first state football title is the sixth in the history of the Maui Interscholastic League, all of them at the Division II level. Lahainaluna won four straight from 2016 to 2019 and King Kekaulike were the champs in 2006.

Pa’u Spencer, a junior left tackle who has a scholarship offer from the University of Hawai’i, led a dominant performance by the offensive line. The Warriors piled up 257 rushing yards, led by Zedekiah Campbell’s 239 yards and a touchdown on 18 physical carries.

The Spencers’ father Charles “Bala” Spencer suffered a stroke in 2017 that has relegated him to a wheelchair without the ability to speak. As mom Lisa Spencer finally reached Kale in New York City, she could barely speak herself.

“Holy, that’s going to be real good,” Pa’u Spencer said about his upcoming talk with his father who stayed on Maui.

Kale Spencer said over the phone: “It feels great, I mean for them to do it for the guys three years ago: It’s a program. It’s a legacy. It’s a family. We did it so the next generation could follow up and go win the state championship like this. It’s all building blocks and it’s proof that we’re building young men and building a great program.”

The Warriors forced three-and-out possessions on the Cougar’s first four drives. It included a tone-setting play on second-and-7 on Kaiser’s first possession, when Kamehameha Maui’s Kaiwa Ho led a swarm tackle of receiver Dillon Reis on a swing pass that lost 4 yards.

After a punt to the Warriors 40-yard line, Campbell carried for runs of 2, 5, 26 and 6 yards to the Cougars’ 20-yard line. On the next snap, quarterback Kolten Waikiki-Caldeira dropped back, faked a handoff to Campbell and lofted a perfect pass to Tevyn Apo for the touchdown reception.

After forcing a third straight drive without a first down for Kaiser, the Warriors went right back to Campbell who ripped off runs of 34 and 29 yards to the Kaiser 4. Two plays later, Waikiki-Caldeira strolled into the end zone on a 1-yard jaunt for a 13-0 lead with 15 seconds left in the first quarter.

The Warriors held the Cougars to just two yards in the first quarter while amassing 165 yards led by Campbell’s 103 rushing yards on six carries.

Campbell, a 5-11, 175-pound junior, was the OC-16 television Player of the Game. 

“It was an honor to just go out there, play with my teammates one last game,” he said. “We made it all the way here and we just finished it off strong. I just want to thank God, too. Without him I wouldn’t be here. Why coaches, they supported me and my family, my mom is a big part of my life.”

On the second play of the second quarter, Kamehameha Maui’s Ramzen Fruean blocked a Kaiser punt and the Warriors scored two plays later on an 11-yard pass from Waikiki-Caldeira to Apo to make it 20-0 with 11:24 left in the first half.

Kaiser didn’t make a first down until 8:54 to go in the second quarter on a 3-yard run on fourth-and-1 that kept their 15-play, 80-yard drive alive. It ended with a 27-yard pass from Jesse Shinagawa to Caleb Hamasaki to pull the Cougars within 20-7 with 3:26 left in the first half. 

After a penalty was called on the Warriors on the point-after kick, the Cougars recovered an onside kick and Hamasaki caught a 37-yard scoring pass from Shinagawa on the next play. In a span of 7 seconds, the Cougars had made it a six-point game at 20-14.

But the Warriors went right back to Campbell for runs of 19, 4, 5, and 2 yards to start the second half. Two plays later he scored on a rough-and-tumble 36-yard run through several would-be tacklers to push the lead to 27-14 with 8:49 left in the third quarter.

As chants of “defense, defense, defense” rang out from the Kamehameha faithful section of the bleachers, the Warriors’ Niuhi Howard II responded with a tackle of Brady Kim for a 2-yard loss to force another Kaiser punt.

Kaiolohia Kang, a 5-9, 135-pound junior defensive back, led the Warriors on defense with eight tackles, six of them solo. He did so with a cast on his right wrist after breaking it in practice more than six weeks ago.

“We put in a lot of work the whole season and it feels unreal,” Kang said. “We were here last year, but to win it for everyone and take it home, it means a lot.”

The Warriors’ defense came up big again when Anthony Sardine Jr. intercepted a Shinagawa pass on the next Cougars’ possession and Campbell immediately ripped off runs of 27 and 12 yards to the Kaiser 2.

Four plays later, Waikiki-Caldeira appeared to be intercepted in the end zone on fourth-and-goal from the 1 with 11:12 to go in the game, but television replay review showed that Warrior’s wide receiver Frank Abreu wrestled the ball away from the defender for a touchdown that made it 34-14.

Kamehameha Maui’s Keanu Lanoza then recovered a pooch kick and the Warriors were back in business at the Kaiser 24-yard line. Kayden Yap capped the scoring with a 38-yard field goal with 9:30 left to play.

Kolt Kaho’ohanohano ended Kaiser’s last good scoring chance when he intercepted a Shinagawa pass inside the Warriors’ 10-yard line with just under 6 minutes to play.

Kamehameha Maui piled up 344 yards of offense to 185 for Kaiser.

Waikiki-Caldeira finished 8-for-14 passing for 87 yards and three touchdowns, all of them off of play action.

“We’re reloading, not rebuilding and it showed everywhere — in the weight room, on the field, conditioning, the coaches,” Waikiki-Caldeira said. “The coaches gave us the answers to the quiz and we just had to go out there and show them what we did was good.”

For Kamehameha Maui head coach Ulima Afoa, the victory was the culmination of his work with the program that began in 2016. The Warriors have fielded varsity football since the 2004 season.

“It feels awesome. I feel exhilarated. I feel happy for our kids. These are great young men that we get to coach,” Afoa said. “I’m so blessed with the staff that I have, so it wasn’t a one-man job, you know what I’m saying? They all worked their butts off to prepare these kids to play this game and basically tonight was a result of that.”