Home Care In Pearl City, HI

Nearly 800 students from Highlands Intermediate School and Pearl City High School explored future college and career opportunities at the first Pearl City Complex Career Connect Fair at Leeward Community College on November 7.

The event brought together about 400 eighth- and 400 ninth-graders to explore high school and college pathways through hands-on activities and conversations with 22 industry employers and 12 Leeward CC Career & Technical Education (CTE) programs, including culinary arts, digital media, mechatronics, automotive technology, and courses within the Office of Workforce Development.

“I was most excited to see the digital media equipment,” said Aura, a student at Highlands Intermediate School. “When I saw it all, I thought, ‘Holy smokes!’”

Classmate Brayden shared that the event broadened his sense of possibility.

“The career fair helped me see my different options after high school. I had fun, and it was a pretty unique experience,” he said.

Connecting coursework, college and careers

The fair helped students see the clear connections between middle and high school coursework, college programs and in-demand careers in Hawai?i’s workforce.

“We’re always excited to welcome students to our campus and introduce them to the many opportunities available through our CTE programs,” said Ron Umehira, dean of CTE. “Leeward CC is here to support students as they begin to envision their futures and take meaningful steps toward their career goals.”

Joseph Halfmann, principal of Pearl City High School, said the fair gives students an important look at how their education connects to real-world possibilities.

“We are committed to shaping the next generation of innovators and global citizens,” said Halfmann. “This event is an important reminder to our students that the opportunities to make an impact start right here, connecting their education to the vital needs of the Pearl City community.”

Lance Tanouye, principal of Highlands Intermediate School, added, “It’s exciting to see the alignment between our schools and Leeward Community College as we work together to build pathways that support workforce development for Hawai?i‘s future.”

Organizers say this first-of-its-kind collaboration lays the groundwork for future opportunities that will continue to guide students as they plan for life after graduation.

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 .

The First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA football championships, known for tantalizing matchups between teams from around the state who might never otherwise meet, get started this weekend with some unusually familiar pairings.

In an unprecedented setup, Division I and II Oahu Interscholastic Association champions Kailua and Roosevelt must rematch the teams, Aiea and Pearl City, that they vanquished in their respective league championship games last week.

It led to quizzical head tilts in some corners of the prep football scene and outright grumbling in others.

HHSAA Executive Director Chris Chun told Spectrum News it was the outcome of voting of seeds by the state leagues’ football coordinators.

“One league one vote. That’s the way the leagues voted,” Chun said in a message Wednesday. “When the leagues proposed to expand the tournaments they all agreed that if there is a same league pairing, HHSAA would not be allowed to adjust.”

The state D-I and D-II fields expanded from four teams to six with the 2022 championships. Those divisions had contracted to four teams in 2017, the year after the Open Division was introduced for the state’s most elite programs.

In the state Open, the OIA champion regularly faces another OIA team in the first round, which is unavoidable given the composition of that tier (three OIA teams and one ILH team).

But this is the first time in state tournament history that two D-I or D-II teams of any one league will face each other in the first round in fields that include all five statewide leagues.

In both those tiers, the OIA champion was voted the No. 3 seed while the OIA’s second team, as the only league runner-up in the field, was in the de facto No. 6 and final position, meaning they were locked into a first-round meeting.

On the other side of the bracket in both D-I and D-II, the fourth-seeded Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion, Damien and Pac-Five, faces a fifth-seeded neighbor island champion (Baldwin of the Maui Interscholastic League in D-I, and Kamehameha-Hawaii of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation in D-II).

Chun said the identical OIA champion placement in both brackets was a voting coincidence.

“OIA was good with it,” Chun said of such an eventuality. “That was the tradeoff to get a second team in.”

But at least one coach of the rematched teams was displeased. Kailua coach Hauoli Wong was jubilant last weekend after his team edged Aiea 21-19 for the Surfriders first OIA championship since 2001. He also seemed to know what was coming; Wong lamented an instant do-over with Na Alii in what will be the third time the teams meet this season.

“To me, that’s just terrible,” Wong said after the Nov. 7 game at Pearl City. “Put us on one half of the bracket (each). 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?”

While the top seeds in D-I and D-II, Kapaa and Kamehameha-Maui, are going for repeat championships, there is guaranteed to be a new Open team raising the trophy once the dust clears. Defending champ Saint Louis was knocked out in ILH play in a significant upset.

The beneficiary was Kamehameha, which ended a 16-year state tournament drought. The Warriors last appeared in 2009 and won the title under then-coach David Stant. The Kapalama Warriors, now guided by Kaeo Drummundo, won the title in the only previous two times they qualified for states; they are the only school to have made the state tournament and never lost at that level.

Stant is now the offensive coordinator at Kahuku, the OIA champion and top seed that recovered from a destabilizing preseason that saw three-time state champion coach Sterling Carvalho suddenly dismissed by the school. Kahuku and Kamehameha could theoretically meet in the championship Dec. 5 at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex, but OIA runner-up Kapolei, which came inches short of upsetting the Red Raiders in the league final, could have something to say about it — as might Campbell, which knocked out Mililani in the OIA third-place game.

The D-I and D-II championships will be held in a doubleheader at Mililani's John Kauinana Stadium on Nov. 28. The semifinals in both tiers will be constested entirely on Neighbor Islands.

One state mainstay that is absent this year? Lahainaluna, which saw its run of 17 consecutive state appearances dating back to 2007 snapped by new MIL champion Baldwin.

Schools making a run at their first championships are Kapolei, Baldwin, Damien, Kailua, KS-Hawaii, Pac-Five, Pearl City and Roosevelt.

Below, Spectrum News presents a look at the teams in each tournament tier and their history in the past 25 editions of the state competition.

OPEN DIVISION

Games: No. 1 Kahuku vs. Campbell, 4 p.m. Nov. 21; No. 2 Kamehameha versus Kapolei, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21, both games at Mililani; Championship 7 p.m. Dec. 5 at Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex

KAHUKU (8-3)

State titles: 11 (2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2021, 2022, 2023)

State tournament appearances: 21

State tournament record: 33-10

Last state appearance: 2024

CAMPBELL (7-3)

State titles: 1 (2004)

State tournament appearances: 9

State tournament record: 4-8

Last state appearance: 2024

KAMEHAMEHA (4-4)

State titles: 2 (2004, 2009)

State tournament appearances: 2

State tournament record: 4-0

Last state appearance: 2009

KAPOLEI (7-5)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 2

State tournament record: 1-2

Last state appearance: 2016

DIVISION I

Games: No. 5 Baldwin vs. No. 4 Damien, 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Farrington; Aiea at No. 3 Kailua, 1 p.m. Saturday; Baldwin/Damien winner at No. 1 Kapaa, 2 p.m. Nov. 22 at Baptiste Sports Complex; Aiea/Kailua winner at No. 2 Konawaena, 6 p.m. Nov. 22; Championship 7:30 p.m. Nov. 28 at Mililani

BALDWIN (6-3)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 15

State tournament record: 5-15

Last state appearance: 2019

DAMIEN (5-2)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 6

State tournament record: 4-6

Last state appearance: 2024

KAILUA (9-3)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 5

State tournament record: 1-5

Last state appearance: 2024

AIEA (8-5)

State titles: 1 (2003)

State tournament appearances: 6

State tournament record: 4-5

Last state appearance: 2022

KONAWAENA (10-2)

State titles: 1 (2022)

State tournament appearances: 12

State tournament record: 6-11

Last state appearance: 2024

KAPAA (7-1)

State titles: 2 (2021, 2024)

State tournament appearances: 10

State tournament record: 12-8

Last state appearance: 2024

DIVISION II

Games: No. 5 Kamehameha-Hawaii vs. No. 4 Pac-Five, 7:30 p.m. Friday at Farrington; Pearl City at No. 3 Roosevelt, 7 p.m. Friday; Pac-Five/KS-Hawaii winner at No. 1 Kamehameha-Maui, 6 p.m. Nov. 22; Roosevelt/Pearl City winner at No. 2 Waimea, 2:30 p.m. Nov. 22 at Hanapepe Stadium; Championship 4 p.m. Nov. 28 at Mililani.

KAMEHAMEHA-HAWAII (7-5)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 9

State tournament record: 1-9

Last state appearance: 2024

PAC-FIVE (3-3)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 4

State tournament record: 1-4

Last state appearance: 2024

PEARL CITY (7-5)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 3

State tournament record: 0-3

Last state appearance: 2014

ROOSEVELT (10-1)

State titles: 0

State tournament appearances: 5

State tournament record: 4-5

Last state appearance: 2024

WAIMEA (3-5)

State titles: 2 (2022, 2023)

State tournament appearances: 7

State tournament record: 8-5

Last state appearance: 2023

KAMEHAMEHA-MAUI (9-1)

State titles: 1 (2024)

State tournament appearances: 4

State tournament record: 5-3

Last state appearance: 2024

covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at .