When Cal Lee returned to Saint Louis a few years ago, part of the reason was to bring back a taste of the old days.
The ways don’t get much older than a season opener in Waianae. From 1967 to 1975, Saint Louis began each season except one (1972) against Larry Ginoza‘s Waianae Seariders. Ron Marciel‘s squad made the trip to the West side in alternating years, making it the only visiting field his boys would play on throughout the entire season.
The trip was not always kind to the Crusaders, absorbing losses of 34-0 and 17-0. All told, Saint Louis was 3-5 against the Seariders in that span, finishing the annual matchup with four losses in a row.
Lee eventually came along and righted the ship, making Saint Louis 19-4 against Waianae since the Prep Bowl began. Half of the losses came at Raymond Torii Field, making today’s trip a potential landmine for quarterback Chevan Cordeiro.
Cordeiro’s senior season will begin against one of the toughest pass defenses in the state. Since Walter Young took over on the West side, his stadium by the sea has become a house of horrors for visiting quarterbacks.
Visiting quarterbacks averaged 100 yards in four games at Waianae last year, and an almost identical 100.66 yards per game in Young’s first year. In the two years before Young took over, opposing quarterbacks averaged 168.6 yards per game at Waianae in 2014 and 131.8 in 2013.
Success can be had on the beach, though. Moanalua’s Micah Kaneshiro threw for 295 yards there in 2013 and Kobe Kato of Aiea put up 240 in 2014. Jeremy Higgins of Saint Louis is the last quarterback to throw for more than 300 yards with 391 way back in 2009.
No matter how Cordeiro fares tonight, he will join a long list of Saint Louis legends who strapped it up against Waianae.
Tua Tagovailoa, Marcus Mariota, Cameron Higgins, Timmy Chang, Jason Gesser, Joel Lane, Erin Hall, Vince Passas, Kaipo Spencer and Buddy Los Banos all played Waianae at one time in their careers, and most of them came away with a win.
What will Cordeiro do tonight?
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