Sabers’ Kishaun Ki is one of those beasts

Amosa Amosa was talking to his team after Friday’s 25-7 loss to Farrington.

The Campbell players were listening to their head coach intently, when Governors star running back Challen Faamatau — instead of running to the team bus — ran up to Amosa mid-speech and shook his hand.

Great sportsmanship. It was another hard-hitting battle between two proud football programs.

Amosa was talking to his kids about how Farrington had its team’s mind made up that it was going to come to Ewa Beach and dominate.

“And that’s what how we need to be approaching it,” he told Hawaii Prep World afterward. “Playoff football, you gotta come to dominate. I felt like that’s what they (the Govs) did tonight. I’m proud of my boys. That’s what a team (tries to do) when they come — to dominate you.”

Faamatau talked about playing against Campbell and how hard they hit, especially defensive lineman Kishaun Ki, who threw Faamatau down like a rag doll for 4-yard losses twice. For anyone who doesn’t know, Faamatau is no rag doll. At 5 feet 10 and 200 pounds, he’s a driving and shifty and hard-hitting runner who has galloped for 3,020 rushing yards in his career.

“He’s a tough guy. He’s strong,” Faamatau said about Ki, who is 6-2 and 280 pounds. “He likes to play wild, too. One thing about that defense, they’re all vicious. I like playing against them because I like to compete. I like to compete against guys that want to hit and knowing at the next level that you’ve got to compete with those guys that like to hit.”

Amosa would be happy to know Faamatau thinks of Campbell as “vicious,” in a football sense. That’s the first step to the “domination” he’s looking for.

Amosa beamed with pride when he spoke about Ki.

“Kishaun has been a force,” he said. “This guy, I mean, to have him in his senior year, pretty awesome. He’s very athletic. He’s a beast, man. He’s the kind of guy that was born to play this game. Pretty amazing.”

The Sabers (5-4) move on to play in the state Division I tournament in November. Amosa knows that his team fell 18 points shy of the highly anticipated, inaugural state Open division.

That Open division is where Farrington (7-2), ranked No. 7 in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Top 10, is going. And so are No. 1 Kahuku, No. 2 Punahou, No. 3 Saint Louis and No. 4 Kapolei. Those teams will be joined by either No. 5 Waianae or No. 6 Waianae tonight.