PEARL CITY, Hawaii — An item in Kailua High School’s locker room finally needs an update.
After twin defensive stops clinched the Surfriders’ first Oahu Interscholastic Association football championship in 24 years, 21-19 over Aiea, it took coach Hauoli Wong a moment to let the ramifications sink in.
Receiver Micah Sua had two rushing touchdowns and the comeback from a six-point halftime deficit was decided when the Surfriders’ Ben Honebein and Delton Kurahashi-Choy Foo converged on Na Alii quarterback Caizel Jesus-Kapesi on a fourth-and-1 scramble at the Aiea 35.
FINAL: Kailua 21, Aiea 19 in OIA Division I championship. Surfriders come back in the second half for their first OIA title since 2001. @KailuaFootball pic.twitter.com/aqXSc606DL
— Brian McInnis (@Brian_McInnis) November 8, 2025
[Note: See below for more photos of Kailua-Aiea for the OIA Division I championship.]
It was the first time that Kailua won a football game with championship stakes since 1965, when the OIA only included rural Oahu schools. Kailua’s most recent title came in 2001 when it and Kahuku were declared co-champions; the OIA playoffs were modified that year in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Wong, a Kailua alumnus who played offensive line at Hawaii and BYU and went on to play in a Super Bowl with the Oakland Raiders in 2003, took a deep breath after his players doused him with ice water and belted out the alma mater to a large throng of banner-waving fans in the stands at Pearl City High’s Edwin “Bino” Neves Stadium.
Wong assisted former coach Gary Rosolowich for nine years from 2005 before taking over the program in 2014.
Along with a Superman-style "S" on team gear, a tradition was introduced in the form of the locker room plaque that said, "Bleed Blue Today."
Wong acutely felt each loss and setback along the way, but the plaque remained. Kailua came close last year but fell to Leilehua in the OIA D-I championship. It got it done this time with a massive, senior offensive line that includes the likes of 6-foot-6, 320-pound Packs Ahovelo and 6-5, 290-pound Esaiah Wong, the son of the coach.
“Notre Dame has one that I believe says ‘Play Like a Champion (Today),’” he said. "I told (the players), when we win it, we’re going to change it. It’s going to say, ‘Bleed Blue Like a Champion Today,’ because we are champions today. And sole champions. Not a shared champion. OIA champion.”
The Surfriders (9-3, 7-1) took the field as a heavy favorite thanks to their steady play that included a 42-0 win at Aiea on Sept. 19.
But Na Alii (8-5, 6-3), who scored an upset of Waipahu on Oct. 11 then produced a stunning 9-7 win at Waianae in the league semifinals, were a different team than the earlier meeting. That was encapsulated by some flea-flicker trickeration for Jesus-Kapesi’s heave to a wide-open Legend Byrd-Tauala for 45 yards, their second TD hookup of the game for a 13-7 Aiea lead going into the break.
“It caught us, and we’re a very aggressive defense, and we just bit a little too much,” Wong said. “But rest assured we fixed it after and we kept everything in front of us.”
Jesus-Kapesi went 21-for-36 for 316 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions while Byrd-Tauala caught six balls for 144 yards.
“They definitely had a different game plan. They had a lot of passes,” the UC Davis-bound edge rusher Honebein said. “We were (defending) more RPO and the stuff they were doing last time. We had two plays I think we messed up on the whole game, and we took a look at those plays and played a lot better. I’m very proud of how we adjusted. … We remained calm the whole time.”
Kailua went three-and-out on its first drive of the second half and Aiea appeared to have the Surfriders stopped again on their next effort, but two untimely penalties — one for dead ball unsportsmanlike conduct and one for pass interference — allowed Kailua to extend its drive, and Sua scored from 3 yards up the middle.
Micah Sua was money throughout the night. He got the chain, got the plaque and two touchdowns he'll remember for the rest of his life, helping Kailua beat Aiea to win the OIA Football D1 Championship.#spectrumoc16sports #OIAfootball #hawaiifootball #impactplayer #kailua pic.twitter.com/NRxJz7l7MC
— Spectrum OC16 Sports (@OC16Sports) November 8, 2025
What appeared to be a personal foul on Kailua for a hit on a scrambling Jesus-Kapesi on Na Alii’s next drive was negated by a holding call and Aiea had to punt.
“Anytime you get a major setback like that with penalties you just gotta try to regroup and come out of it or survive it,” Aiea coach Mika Liilii said. “But a good (Kailua) team like this, it’s tough to bounce back like that.”
Marquez Mellor broke loose from 22 yards around the left edge for a 21-13 lead with 7:55 remaining.
But Aiea wasn’t done. Jesus-Kapesi found Champ Colburn in stride over the middle and he was gone for 68 yards with 4:59 to go.
On Aiea’s critical 2-point conversion attempt to tie coming out of a timeout, Na Alii went heavy. Hiki Kim Choy-Keb-Ah Lo took a direct snap and tried to exploit a hole in the right side of the line. But Honebein dove and got a hand on his leg, Jonah Sua stood him up a couple yards short of the goal line and Keoki Cypriano came over to reverse Kim Choy-Keb-Ah Lo’s momentum.
“I told everybody, ‘This is our season right here. This is how we persevere,’” Honebein said.
Said Liilii of that key call, “Ola (Willing) calls a good game. I back up my OC in the plays that he choose.”
Kailua was not able to gain the first down it needed to run out the clock, however, as Mellor gained 5 yards on two carries and quarterback Isaiah Keaunui-Demello was dropped for a loss on third down.
Aiea got it back at its 12 from Micah Sua’s punt with 2:26 to go. Jesus-Kapesi gained a first down with his legs, but the Surfirders’ coverage was strong and Aiea had to settle on underneath routes. It faced 4 and 1 from its 35 when Honebein came around from behind and forced Jesus-Kapesi to scramble up the middle. Honebein got him by the ankles and Kurahashi-Choy Foo was waiting for the rest, and the Surfriders had their first sack of the night.
“(Honebein) was pressuring the quarterback all night, but we just couldn’t corral him,” Wong said. “And then we got to him on the last play that we needed to get to him. I feel that’s just perseverance, that’s just want-to, that’s just heart. And that’s what he did — he kept working. Ben’s gotten double-teamed and triple-teamed all year long. And he just keeps going. He has that motor, and that’s why he’s one of our leaders on our defense and all of our defense stepped up on that last drive.”
Three kneel-downs did the trick after Aiea called timeout on the first.
“Shout out to my linemen. If it wasn’t for them, the wave wouldn’t happen,” said Micah Sua, the Spectrum OC16 impact player who caught three passes for 20 yards and had the two rushing scores.
“All our teammates’ families showing out, people coming in from the mainland, just supporting us, watching us on TV, it’s a big thing to us,” Sua told Spectrum OC16’s Jimmy Bender. “We came this far.”
The last time Kailua was the outright league champion was in 1965 under coach Alex Kane, when the Surfriders topped Campbell, 34-6, in the championship game, then went on to beat Aiea in a Thanksgiving Eve doubleheader at old Honolulu Stadium, as was the OIA’s custom at the time, to cap an unbeaten OIA season and complete a three-peat from 1963 to 1965.
This was Kailua’s fifth overall OIA crown. Aiea was denied its fourth; it last won in 2021 under Wendell Say.
Early word of the makeup of the HHSAA Division I bracket, not yet released, served as a slight dampener to the celebration. Kailua was under the impression that it would be the No. 4 seed in the six-team field and host Aiea in an immediate rematch at the Surfriders’ problem-plagued field next weekend.
[UPDATE: That wasn't quite the case when the D-I bracket was released Saturday night, as Kailua was the No. 3 seed, but it will indeed meet unseeded Aiea.]
As revealed on Spectrum OC16, here are the HHSAA Football D1 and Open Championship brackets!#spectrumoc16sports #HHSAAfootball #hawaiifootball pic.twitter.com/s9CjyszrMU
— Spectrum OC16 Sports (@OC16Sports) November 9, 2025
The HHSAA Division II bracket that was officially released Friday night includes another instant OIA rematch between Roosevelt and Pearl City.
“It’s going to be tough,” Wong said. “It’s the third time. It’ll be at home, in the daytime. It’s to our advantage, but that’s what you work for, right? If you win the championship, you host. And we’d like to be a higher seed — we’re just pushing that out there because this division is the toughest.
“To me, that’s just terrible,” he added. “Put us on one half of the bracket. We like to stir things up and if we meet up in the end, why not? We deserve it. We’re the biggest league and the strongest league. We have two representatives. Why make us take one another out?”
Kailua does not have an HHSAA title since state play began in 1999.
covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at .
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