Sports Update
But the 15-7, 15-4, 13-15, 15-6 victory over the Utes was a good warm-up for Saturday night's sold-out match with the Cardinal, the kind of match that helped Hawaii refocus during its pregame walk-through Saturday morning.
"We've been waiting for Stanford all season," said Hawaii setter Robyn Ah Mow, whose team extended its unbeaten streak to 23 matches at the Special Events Arena last night.
It appeared the same for the season-low crowd of 6,444 (7,771 tickets issued), which politely sat through last night's match as if it were the undercard of a heavyweight title fight. There wasn't much to get excited about as the Wahine weaved through most of the roadblocks the Utes put up during the first two games.
The Tigers (6-2) and the Sabers (5-2) will meet each other on Thursday in the semifinals at the stadium. On Friday, Waianae (7-0) will face Waipahu (4-3) in the other semifinal.
The championship will be held on Nov. 12.
Due to concerns about the potential for gang violence, there were as many as 40 plain-clothes police officers with radios patrolling inside the stadium and outside in the parking lot, according to a stadium official.
There were no incidents.
McKinley 13, Farrington 13: The Tigers won a Cornell rule tiebreaker on an interception by junior linebacker Keola Kalama.
Under the tiebreaker, each team is given four downs to advance as far as it can from the 50. The team with the most yardage wins.
McKinley quarterback Charles Napulou III opened his team's drive with a run to the outside. Driven out of bounds at the line of scrimmage, Farrington's Asotolu Tautua made a heavy hit on him near the McKinley bench. That drew a flag and Farrington was assessed a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, putting the ball at the 35.
Napulou gained four more yards on the next play.
To the surprise of all who know Farrington's bread-and-butter is the run, the Governors started their drive with two incomplete passes.
On the third-down pass, Kalama stepped in front of Paulson Leong and made the game-winning pickoff.
Campbell 36, Castle 20: The Sabers built a 20-0 lead in the first quarter on a 12-yard Kaleopa Kaleopa pass to Kanaloa Pantastico, a 48-yard interception return by Danilo Viloria and a 47-yard run by Clifford Russell, who led all ball carriers with 159 yards on 20 carries.
But Castle responded by scoring 17 points in the second quarter.
Kaleo Hawn threw touchdown passes of 51 and 39 yards to Kalani Cathcart and Kiha Scoltz followed those with a 21-yard field goal.
Scholtz tied the game, 20-20, on a 27-yard field goal.
But Campbell got a break that curbed the Castle momentum.
Scholtz was downed at his 12 yard line after he tried to recover an errant punt snap and one play later, Russell darted 12 yards to restore the Saber lead for good.
"If you take out the second quarter, we played the kind of game we're capable of," Sabers coach Darren Hernandez said. "In the second, we lost our composure."
Hernandez said Russell's second touchdown was a critical play.
"It was the difference in the game because we took advantage of that turnover," he said.