Look: Kahuku-St. John Bosco final play includes crushing hit, flying helmet, fuming coaches

When the dust settles, the teams shake hands and the hosts from Hawaii come away with a huge upset
Look: Kahuku-St. John Bosco final play includes crushing hit, flying helmet, fuming coaches
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)

-- Mike Swanson | swanson@scorebooklive | @sblivesports


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Mike Swanson, SBLive Sports
MIKE SWANSON, SBLIVE SPORTS

Mike Swanson is the Trending News Editor for SBLive Sports. He's been in journalism since 2003, having worked as a reporter, city editor, copy editor and high school sports editor in California, Connecticut and Oregon.