Punahou, alma mater of President-elect Barack Obama, will face St. Louis on Friday, hoping to avenge its only loss of the season.
By Stephen Spiewak
MaxPreps.com
A little over a week after Barack Obama was successful in winning a hard-fought campaign against Republican presidential nominee John McCain, his alma mater Punahou will hit the big stage in Hawaii.
On Friday night, Punahou faces an enormous challenge as it will take on perennial power St. Louis in a showdown of two of the state’s top teams.
The Buff n’ Blue are 9-1 this season and coming off a 21-14 victory over Kamehameha. Cayman Shutter, who has amassed nearly 1,300 passing yards and accounted for 19 touchdowns, leads the offense.
Robert Toma has been on the receiving end of 13 touchdown passes. He averages nearly 15 yards per catch. Dalton Hilliard has six touchdown grabs, but has done most of his damage on the ground, where he has scored eight times.
Younger brother Kamden, only a freshman, has not played varsity this season, but is expected to have a bright future with the program.
As powerful as Punahou’s offense is (averaging 37.3 points per game), the most prominent player lines up on the defensive side of the ball.
Manti Te’o stands 6-foot-2, 233 pounds, and has excellent closing speed for his size. He’s a terror on special teams, always a threat to disrupt a punt or field goal attempt.
He leads the team and the entire state with 98 tackles. Te’o is a highly-touted recruit, and ranked as the nation’s second best linebacker according to CBS College Sports’ Tom Lemming. As a junior, he captured
Hawaii’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
St. Louis is 8-1, and is the only team to have beaten Punahou this season, thrashing the Buff n’ Blue 40-19 in their Sept. 13 meeting. The Crusaders were upset two weeks later by ‘Iolani in a shootout, 35-30.
Punahou’s loss to
St. Louis came one week after the team traveled to
Seattle to take part in the Emerald City Kickoff Classic, where they downed Central Kitsap (
Silverdale, Wash.), 42-19.
While Punahou’s football team is making the most waves this fall, the Buff n’ Blue have a number of successful sports programs. They are the defending champions in 17 different sports, including popular sports like girls and boys basketball, as well as some less well known sports like judo and girls canoe paddling.
So dominant were the Buff n’ Blue during the 2007-2008 academic year that MaxPreps.com’s own Kevin Askeland appointed them as the nation’s top sports program.
“It’s been a good year for Punahou athletes, both past and present,” Askeland wrote over the summer. “While the Buff n’ Blue were racking up state championship after state championship, Punahou graduate Barack Obama was racking up state championships of another kind, on his way to capturing the Democratic candidacy for the 2008 presidential race.”
It might be said that Obama, who won the election in a landslide, never encountered the potent opposition that Punahou will see in
St. Louis. The Crusaders have scored 40 or more points six times this season, tallying 55 points in their last contest.
Conversely, the team’s defense is equally imposing. Against Punahou earlier this season,
St. Louis intercepted Cayman Shutter twice, and held Dalton Hilliard to eight yards on 10 carries.
The Buff n’ Blue have lost their last five meetings with
St. Louis. Kickoff on Wednesday is set for 6:30 p.m., as Punahou attempts to exact revenge and mirror the recent success of its most famous alum.
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