Depleted Knights
overcome

It wasn't pretty, but despite suiting up only 26 players due to academic reasons, Castle was able to open the OIA regular season with a much-needed victory.

John Ufuti scored on two 1-yard touchdown runs and Lihikai Domingo scored on a 54-yard reverse play with 5 minutes to go to help Castle defeat the Governors 19-7 last night at Roosevelt in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Red East opener for both teams.

The two teams combined for 26 penalties in a game that took 3 hours to complete.

"We were lucky just to escape with a win," Castle coach Nelson Maeda said. "Penalties kept pointing us in the wrong direction. It was a complete lack of discipline."

After giving up 49 points a week ago to Campbell in a loss, the Knights defense put forth a much better effort last night, holding Farrington to 189 total yards while forcing five turnovers.

"We had four athletes on defense come back this week from injuries, so I think that really helped us," Maeda said.

Struggling to move the ball successfully down the field, the Governors finally found the end zone with 5:24 left in the game as Elijah Filifili took a bootleg 9 yards, plowing through a Castle defender at the goal line for a touchdown to cut the Castle lead to 12-7. But on the first play of the ensuing drive, Domingo took a reverse 54 yards for a score to push the lead back to 12 for good.

"My quarterback, Bryce, said we've got to try run out the clock, so all I was thinking was to stay in bounds," Domingo said. "The receivers blocked well and I just ran with it."

"They were bringing people up the middle, so we went outside and (Lihikai) got some good blocking and motored the rest of the way," Maeda added.

Mistakes killed the Governors throughout the entire first half as a fumble on their first play from scrimmage gave Castle the ball at the Farrington 1-yard line. John Ufuti would take advantage, punching the ball in from a yard out to give the Knights a quick 7-0 lead. The Governors would again fumble the ball on their second offensive play and finished with four turnovers and just 17 total yards in the first half.

Ufuti would add another 1-yard touchdown run to make the score 12-0 at halftime, but the lead could have been much greater as the Knights failed to score three times when starting a drive in Farrington territory and finished with 93 total yards of offense in the first half.

Kenneth Faumui led the Governors rushing attack with 84 yards on 20 carries and added four receptions for 38 yards.