Saturday, September 15, 2001
[ PREP FOOTBALL ]
If the Kahuku Red Raiders win their fourth consecutive Oahu Interscholastic Association football championship they'll have to share the title. Makeups cost OIA title game
By Jason Kaneshiro
jkaneshiro@starbulletin.comThe OIA announced yesterday that this week's postponed games will be played at the end of the regular season and the league playoffs will be shortened by one week, eliminating the championship and third-place games. The winners of the semifinals will be declared co-champions.
"We wanted to make sure we give our student-athletes as much opportunity to participate as possible," OIA executive secretary Dwight Toyama said.
"Football is unique in that you can only play one game a week and you don't have a lot of weeks to work with," Toyama added. "It's a bit of a compromise, but this is so minute compared to what's going on across the country."
All of the state's high school leagues postponed events scheduled for this weekend in response to Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., Hawaii was the only state to completely shut down prep sports this weekend.
OIA athletic directors unanimously decided to reschedule this week's games for the weekend of Oct. 25-27. The first round of the varsity and junior varsity playoffs, originally set for that weekend, will be pushed back a week to Nov. 1 and 2.
Games on Nov. 1 will be played at Aloha Stadium. Sites for the Nov. 2 games have yet to be determined.
The semifinals are set for Nov. 9 at Aloha Stadium. The winners will share the OIA championship. All four semifinalists qualify for the state tournament, which opens the following week. The junior varsity championship will be decided Nov. 17 at a school field.
The OIA's state tournament representatives will be seeded according to their ranking entering the league playoffs. The higher seeded team of the co-champions will be granted the OIA's top seed in the state tournament. The top five teams from the OIA Red Conference and the top three teams from the White Conference qualify for the league playoffs.
Toyama said canceling this week's games would create unbalanced schedules for teams that still have bye weeks and the season could not be extended without altering the state tournament format.
"I think it was pretty creative to come up with something like this," Toyama said of the solution proposed by OIA football coordinator Richard Townsend and the league's football committee.
The OIA season will resume Friday, highlighted by the game between Castle and Kahuku at Aloha Stadium. Both teams are undefeated in the OIA Red Conference.
Four homecoming games had been scheduled for this weekend. Leilehua, Moanalua and Pearl City will play their homecoming games on the last week of the season. Nanakuli moved its homecoming game to Oct. 19 against Kalaheo.
The changes will allow the OIA to play two games at Aloha Stadium on the final week of the regular season. The game between current White Conference leaders Aiea and Roosevelt will be played Oct. 25 and Red Conference rivals Kahuku and Waianae will meet Oct. 27.
The Interscholastic League of Honolulu has moved its games scheduled for tonight to Sept. 22. The games originally set for that date will be played Sept. 28, which was scheduled as a bye week for the entire league. All of the games will be played at Aloha Stadium.
The OIA also altered its volleyball season, which was set to open this week.
Matches scheduled for this past Thursday will be played Sept. 24. Matches that were to be played today have been moved to Oct. 1. Volleyball season now opens Tuesday.
OIA cross country meets set for today will be held next week. The meets originally scheduled for Sept. 22 will be moved to Oct. 13.
The championship meets have also been pushed back a week. The OIA Eastern and Western Division championships will be held Oct. 20. The junior varsity championship will be held Oct. 27 and the varsity championship will be held Nov. 3. The state championship is set for Nov. 11 on Kauai.
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