WAILUKU — The Red Tide from the West Side is formally again.

Lahainaluna High School’s extremely anticipated return to the soccer discipline occurred Saturday evening at a jam-packed, emotion-filled War Memorial Stadium, and the Lunas took care of enterprise with a dominant 42-0 win over Baldwin. 

It was the primary motion for the soccer crew for the reason that Aug. 8 wildfires devastated their neighborhood.

“It felt great playing with the team again, just getting back on the field, we’ve been waiting for this moment too long, too long,” senior operating again Kaulana Tihada mentioned after dashing for 29 yards on seven carries and recording 20 receiving yards and a landing on three catches. “It’s been definitely a hard time, you know, ever since that fire, but we’ve been persevering. We got to work extra hard, especially since we were behind everyone, so it means a lot to come out here and play for this whole community.”

At halftime an announcement of a donation of $10,000 to the Lahainaluna band was made — the Baldwin band performed a big half within the donation and several other different college bands across the island helped within the effort.

The Baldwin and Lahainaluna band met at midfield and embraced through the halftime announcement ceremony.

The Lunas led 28-0 at halftime on the energy of three landing passes by Lyrik Kahula — 19 yards to Kuola Watson to open the scoring, 18 yards to Avery Baybayan to make it 13-0 one play into the second quarter, and eight yards to Tihada to push the result in 21-0 with 4:21 left within the second quarter.

The Lunas scored their fourth landing on a 4-yard run by T.J. Borges with 44 seconds left earlier than the break.

The Lunas outgained the Bears 176 yards to 31 within the first half and 238-29 for the sport. 

Baybayan turned on the 35-point mercy-rule operating clock on the primary play of the second half with an electrifying 69-yard kickoff return, and Hoken Hironaka’s 4-yard run with 11:46 to play made it 42-0.

Baldwin coach Cody Nakamura was joyful his crew acquired to be a part of the festivities. The Bears fell to 0-5 and had been shut out for the fourth time.

“Chicken skin all the way through,” Nakamura mentioned. “Great to see the Maui community out here supporting the boys’ first game. It was great to see what a great environment it was, a lot of noise and very exciting.” 

Nakamura mentioned he hopes that his crew can study from the expertise.

“I think it was an eye-opening experience for them,” Nakamura mentioned. “Something that they haven’t been exposed to I don’t think ever for this group. So, good to kind of get that exposure, try and get them used to it so in the future if we get to turn this program around they’re there and they know what to expect.”

Lahainaluna co-head coach Dean Rickard was joyful to have the primary sport out of the best way. They play Maui High subsequent week in a battle of two groups which can be 1-0 in Maui Interscholastic League Division I play.

The sport was packed to the gills with about 5,000 followers in attendance, and the media crush made it most definitely probably the most coated MIL sport ever.

“We definitely were trying to figure out which team would be coming out,” Rickard mentioned. “Especially considering all the hype around this game and the media attention and we just wanted them to focus. We were pleased with what we saw, but at the same time there’s a lot of things that we need to fix up.”

Lahainaluna 7 21 7 7–42

Baldwin 0 0 0 0–0

First Quarter

LL–Kuola Watson 19 cross from Lyrik Kahula (Joseph Arcangel kick), 6:27.

Second Quarter

LL–Avery Baybayan 18 cross from Kahula (kick failed), 11:53.

LL–Kaulana Tihada 8 cross from Kahula (Tihada run), 4:21.

LL–T.J. Borges 4 run (Arcangel kick), 0:44.

Third Quarter

L:L–Baybayan 69 kickoff return (Arcangel kick), 11:46.

Fourth Quarter

LL–Hoken Hironaka 4 run (Arcangel kick), 7:30.

Junior varsity–Lahainaluna 14, Baldwin 9