RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Long Beach Poly wide receiver Derrick Jones hauled in this pass in front of Kahuku defensive back Kyle Juliano in the second quarter yesterday.

Kahuku gets ‘Beached’

De La Salle delivers
Kahuku may have seen Poly's next pro
Spartans didn't stay grounded
Notebook

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By Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.com

This is what we call in island parlance, "getting Kahuku'd."

Unfortunately for the home team, it was the one receiving the shabby treatment and learning the lessons.

Long Beach (Calif.) Poly wasted no time in dispatching the Red Raiders last night, scoring on their first four possessions to beat Kahuku 42-16 at Aloha Stadium.

"That hasn't happened to us for a while," Kahuku coach Siuaki Livai said. "The kids will be OK, though. They know that playing a team like this is a plus-plus. Talk about speed, most teams you can identify who is fast. They are all fast. It can only make us better."

Kahuku delayed the Jackrabbits' scoring barrage for seven minutes by keeping the ball on the ground and eating up four minutes -- the Raiders threw the ball only once, a drop by a wide-open Sahavili Latu in the flat -- before giving the ball up on downs at Poly's 43-yard line.

The Jackrabbits knew what to do with it from there, marching down the field for their first score on a 7-yard sweep by Lorenzo Bursey. The Red Raiders' defense was stiff enough to force the Jackrabbits to take eight plays to score the first touchdown. They would be more generous the rest of the first half, allowing Poly to score on quick drives of four, one and five plays while running up a 28-0 lead.

"The kids were very prepared and did a very good job," Poly coach Raul Lara said. "They even surprised me. But if they (Kahuku) don't turn the ball over, it is a very different game."

The Red Raiders turned the ball over four times in the first half, twice on fumbles and twice on interceptions. They turned it over once more in the second half.

Kahuku slowed the Jackrabbits' offense on those drives, but Poly always had wide receiver Derrick Jones to bail it out. Jones caught four Leon Jackson passes for 147 yards and a touchdown in the first half, beating Kahuku cornerback Kyle Juliano -- who had position on Jones but had the ball taken away each time -- on three of them.

Jones had more in store for the Red Raiders, returning the second-half kickoff 82 yards for another score. Jones finished with 229 all-purpose yards before sitting down for the night just after his touchdown return.

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Long Beach Poly's Byron Velega intercepted a pass in front of Kahuku receiver James Haiola.

While Jones dominated the Red Raiders in the secondary, Poly's offensive line was even more effective. Jackson went the entire game without being sacked and the Jackrabbits averaged 6.2 yards per carry while grinding out 215 total yards rushing.

"I wasn't surprised about our offensive line," Lara said. "That is one of the things we emphasize and the way they come up the field, we felt we could do something with that."

The Kahuku defense, which shook off the 28-0 deficit to keep the Jackrabbits off the board on their next three possessions, scored the team's first two points -- and the first two points Poly has allowed this season -- when Sione Olevao caught running back Jeremiah Toloumu from behind in the end zone and forced him to fumble. The Jackrabbits recovered the ball, but the safety stood to send Kahuku into the locker room with points on the board.

The Red Raiders nearly went into halftime with even more, as quarterback Waika Carvalho hit a diving Spencer Hafoka for a 41-yard gain that was seven yards short of a score as the clock ran out. It made up 41 of Kahuku's 55 yards in the air at the half.

"We had to spread it out and play games with them," Livai said. "When you do that it can either get better or get worse. We didn't want to do it, but the game (situation) made us."

Carvalho became the first offensive player to crack Poly's armor this season with a 24-yard TD sweep around left end in the fourth quarter against the Jackrabbits' substitutes. He was pushed out of bounds over the corner marker, but not before crossing the goal-line plane. Robert Tuifua latched on to a Carvalho pass for a successful two-point conversion, making it 42-10.

With 39 seconds left in the game, Carvalho put another small dent into the visitors from California, finding Bronson Ponciano cutting across the middle of the end zone for a 13-yard score.

But the late rally was too late to win the game. It was not too late to learn a few lessons, though.

"Even though we lost, I feel like we won inside," Carvalho said. "They have great speed, but we thought we could do better. We just didn't go hard enough. If we would have went hard from the beginning we would have won."

At Aloha Stadium

Long Beach Poly(2-0)1414140--42
Kahuku (3-1)02014--16

LBP -- Lorenzo Bursey 7 run (Nate Smith kick)
LBP -- Derrick Jones 56 pass from Leon Jackson (Smith kick)
LBP -- Bursey 22 pass from Jackson run (Nate Smith kick)
LBP -- Jabbar Morris 7 run (Smith kick)
KAH -- Team safety
LBP -- Jones 82 kickoff return (Smith kick)
LBP -- Bursey 19 run ( Smith kick)
KAH -- Waika Carvalho 24 run (Robert Tuifua pass from Carvalho)
KAH -- Bronson Ponciano 13 pass from Carvalho (run failed)

RUSHING -- Poly: Lorenzo Bursey 6-62; Dwayne Washington 9-44; Anthony Baker 4-37; Jabbar Morris 4-31; Jeremiah Toloumu 6-25; Leon Jackson 3-16; Cruz Parsons 1-0; Larenzo Parsons 2-0. Kahuku: Spencer Hafoka 15-73; Waika Carvalho 3-26; Paea Vaimoui 7-23; Sione Fotu 8-20; Cy Naki 5-15; George Perry 1-5; Michael Garcia 3-4; Seth Cravens 1-3; Tu Tui 1-1; Robert Tuifua 1-0.

PASSING -- Poly: Leon Jackson 6-13-0-172; Cruz Parsons 1-2-1-2. Kahuku: Waika Carvalho 6-17-2-140; Spencer Hafoka 2-7-0-9.

RECEIVING -- Poly: Derrick Jones 4-147; Lorenzo Bursey 1-22; Jeremiah Tolomu 1-3; Anthony Baker 1-2. Kahuku: Hafoka 3-82; Michael Garcia 2-45; Bronson Ponciani 1-13; Sahavili Latu 1-11; Sione Fotu 1-(-2).