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RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaii slotback Chad Owens ran in a first-quarter touchdown last night against Nevada.


Owens pulls an encore


Hawaii's Chad Owens continues to make opponents pay with his speed and ability to escape tacklers.

The senior slotback had his second straight stellar game in last night's 48-26 victory over Nevada at Aloha Stadium.

Coming off a three-touchdown performance against Tulsa last week, Owens scored three more last night. One of the scores -- a dazzling 75-yard punt return -- gave the Warriors a comfortable 34-13 cushion with 2:43 left in the third quarter.

It was the fifth return touchdown of his career and it came one week after his 66-yard punt return for a TD against the Golden Hurricane.

"I really don't know," said Owens, when asked how he keeps finding the daylight. "Every play, I play my best and if it's there and the opportunity comes, I make the best of it. Right now, I'm kind of in a zone."

Owens tied Bobby Ahu's school record of three career punt returns for a touchdown, set in 1969.

Owens, who came into the game leading the nation in receptions, finished with seven catches for 80 yards. He now has 38 catches for 442 yards and six receiving TDs (eight overall) in four games.

Owens also passed Jeff Sydner into second place on the school's all-purpose yardage list. He has 4,323 all-purpose yards and needs 327 more to break Gary Allen's all-time mark of 4,558.

"I can't imagine there's a better returner in the country," Hawaii coach June Jones said about Owens. "He's No. 1."

Moenoa gets first TD: They say it's every lineman's dream, and last night Uriah Moenoa got to live it.

Kind of.

The UH senior guard scored the first touchdown of his life. But he didn't know it, not until KFVE-TV (Channel 5) sideline reporter Russell Yamanoha informed him in the fourth quarter that the official ruling was that he had scored.

Moenoa pounced on a loose ball with 1:16 to go in the third quarter to ensure a touchdown that, with the point-after, would give Hawaii a 41-13 lead.

A Tim Chang pass to Michael Brewster took the ball to the 1 -- then it was knocked loose, and Moenoa was a hero.

Eventually.

For all he or any of his teammates knew, Brewster had crossed the goal line. Moenoa was just acting on instinct.

"My initial reaction was just jump on it, you know? Make sure we get the ball back. And I jumped on it in the end zone," Moenoa said. All he saw was the official signal the score, so he was happy. And that was the last he thought of it.

"I just happened to be running downfield to get a block down for Brew. I thought Brew scored," he said.

By the time he was told it was he who scored, the thrill just wasn't the same.

"OK," he said, summing up his reaction to the news. "Nothing big, you know. I would rather get the win than a touchdown. I just happened to be the lucky guy on the spot."

Still, it was satisfying. It was fun. It was every lineman's dream.

"You know, I thought about it, I thought about it. Waiting for my time to happen. I've been thinking about this since high school. And it just so happens that I got it today," he said.

So all this time he's been waiting for somebody to fumble?

He laughed. No, of course not. Really.

No welcome home for Spencer: Caleb Spencer's return to Hawaii didn't go the way he would have liked it to. But after committing a false-start penalty early in the second quarter, the sophomore from Kamehameha Schools settled down to catch four passes for 91 yards.

"This isn't our (Nevada's) home but it's my home," Spencer said. "I just wanted the ball bad and tried to make something happen every time I touched it."

Spencer should get one more chance to play in front of the home crowd as the Wolf Pack are slated to play here again in two years.



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