Look: Kahuku-St. John Bosco final play includes crushing hit, flying helmet, fuming coaches
Kahuku (Hawaii) scored one of the upsets of the century in high school football Saturday with a 30-23 home win over national No. 2 St. John Bosco (California).
A game loaded with drama finished about as dramatically as possible, in a football and in an extracurricular sense.
Watch the final play, captured by Spectrum News Hawaii — complete with a bone-crushing, helmet-flying hit, flags thrown, fuming coaches, flags picked up and finally a jubilant Kahuku squad:
The coaches on each side agreed to disagree about whether that final hit by Kahuku linebacker Malaki Soliai-Tui should have resulted in a 15-yard penalty and kept the game going.
St. John Bosco coach Jason Negro contended that in "new football," the hit definitely should have resulted in a flag:
Kahuku coach Sterling Carvalho saw it differently, calling the hit an exhibition of "great technique" by Soliai-Tui:
It was a payback victory of sorts for Kahuku, the two-time defending Open Division state champion in Hawaii, which lost 34-7 at St. John Bosco last season.
The Red Raiders were also just a week removed from their worst loss in school history, a 55-8 defeat at Mater Dei (California), the top-ranked team in the national SBLive/Sports Illustrated Power 25.
But even after that loss, their spirits clearly weren't broken.
Kahuku (5-1) returns to in-state action this week against Nanakuli, while St. John Bosco (4-1) has the week off before facing Santa Margarita on Sept. 29.
(Kahuku photo by Heston Quan)
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-- Mike Swanson | swanson@scorebooklive | @sblivesports
