CLOSING THE BOOK: Roosevelt Rough Riders

The Roosevelt Rough Riders turned back the clock and put together its best team Ticky Vasconcellos Stadium has ever hosted.

The field was home to a winning Roosevelt team for the first time since it was named after the legendary ILH coach in 2007. Kui Kahooilihala earned his 18th career win and will never match the 91 put up by Vasconcellos at the school but he can rest easy knowing that he put up a season that rivals any other.

The Rough Riders won 12 games in their Division II schedule, the most for the school since Vasconcellos was 12-0 in 1956, and won as many games as it had in the four previous years combined. Roosevelt’s two losses were the fewest since Jeff Azuma‘s crew in 1995 and its 14.7 margin of victory, not counting a forfeit over St. Francis, was the best since 1999 when Lester Parilla was calling the shots.

Roosevelt did it on both sides of the ball, averaging 26 points per game for its most since Parilla put up 36 in 1999. Kahooilihala has had two straight years with more than 20 points per game, the first time at the school since Vasconcellos did it four years in a row from 1959-62.

Even with Roosevelt’s blowout loss to Lahainaluna in the state tournament, the Rough Riders allowed only 11.3 points against per game, the best mark for the program since Dale Asami held opponents to an 8.1 mark in the defense-minded year of 1989.

2018 TOP PERFORMANCES

Passing

Sky Ogata‘s athleticism made him a run-first quarterback, but he proved he could fling it. He threw for 1,185 yards and seven touchdowns in 228 attempts and had just seven interceptions. That was more yards than Shastyn Kekahuna put up in Kahooilihala’s first two years at the helm and the most at the school since Kekahuna went for 1,223 and 14 touchdowns in 2015 in Jeff Azuma‘s final year. Ogata had nearly all of the team’s pass attempts this year, but Tamaki Iijima, who began the year as the starter, and Brandon Texiera, joined him with touchdown passes. Ogata was at his best in the middle of the season, when he threw for 205 yards on 28 attempts with three touchdowns and a pick against McKinley, and followed it up with two more touchdowns against Pearl City. Ogata’s 200-yard effort was the first by a Roosevelt quarterback since Kekahuna against Kalaheo in 2015.

Rushing

Roosevelt has had plenty of athletes over the years, but none of them had Ogata’s dual-threat ability as the only player in school history to throw for 200 yards in a game and rush for more than 100. Ogata finished with 850 yards on 122 attempts and 14 touchdowns, but he had plenty of help from Mitchell Camacho, who had a 120-733-4 line, giving them two players with more rushing yards than any Rough Rider since Ranson Tuitama led the club with 1,101 yards in 2007. Ogata eclipsed the century mark three times this year and Camacho did it once, giving them the most in a single season since Tuitama slashed over the century mark five times in 2007. Ogata did beat Tuitama in one category, covering 195 yards on the ground in a win over Pearl City to put himself fourth on the school’s all-time list behind only Paul Gusman and Camacho. Ogata was more efficient than those guys, though, doing his damage on only nine carries and scoring on four of them. He also threw for two touchdowns in that performance.

Receiving

With defenses worried to death about Ogata and Camacho, Scott Chung got open enough to compile 43 catches for 318 yards to lead the team in those categories, while Aalona Monteilh and Nicholas Ogata combined for 42 receptions for 495 yards and four scores. Kirk Calinao caught only six passes this season, but two of them put points on the scoreboard. Chung’s 318 yards made him the best receiver in the Kahooilihala era, and he had the most since Shayne Teruya had 641 yards and nine touchdowns in 2015. Monteilh had the biggest game of the season in the opener, catching four passes for 144 yards and two touchdowns against Nanakuli, but he didn’t have a catch in the next five games. That performance put him ninth on the program’s single-game yardage list and was only the second game over 140 yards this century, joining Shayne Teruya‘s 164-yard effort in 2015. Roosevelt had not had a receiver go over 100 yards in the past two years.

Defense

Roosevelt had successive shutouts this season, blanking Kalani and Waialua for the program’s first double doughnut in consecutive weeks since the close of the 1975 season when it blanked Kalani and Kaiser, and the first time the unit had two shutouts in a season since 2007. Roosevelt’s best performance of the season has to be the Waialua game, when the Rough Riders held the Bulldogs to 71 yards through the air with an interception and completely shut down the running game for minus-43 yards with a safety added in for good measure.

HEAD COACH
>> Kui Kahooilihala is 18-12 in three seasons

STAT RANKINGS
>> QB Sky Ogata finished seventh in Division II in passing yards.
>> QB Sky Ogata finished fourth, RB Mitchell Camacho placed fifth and RB Myka Kukahiwa finished 10th in Division II in rushing yards.

KEY UNDERCLASSMEN IN 2018
>> RB Mitchell Camacho (5-6, 135), RB/DB Aalona Monteilh (5-11, 165), QB Sky Ogata (5-8, 160), RB/LB Myka Kukahiwa (5-9, 170), WR Scott Chung (5-7, 160), RB/DB Josh Maikui (5-10, 175), WR/DB Isaac Kaleikau (5-10, 170), LB/RB Keneke Gusman (5-9, 195), OL Adam Soares (6-2, 250).

FINAL TEAM STATS