Football

Perhaps the Polynesian Bowl, a high school football all-star game that matches the best Hawaii has to offer with the rest of the nation’s top talent, was made for players like Punahou’s Tamatoa Falatea. Falatea was selected to the game due to his production on the field for the Buffanblu. In his senior season, he caught 74 passes for 1,057 yards and 11 touchdowns en route to Star-Advertiser All-State first team honors at wide receiver. Despite the numbers, Falatea says […]

It was a maulers’ night in the trenches, but the most outstanding players of the Polynesian Hall of Fame Bowl turned out to be rangy and even balletic. Daniel Heimuli, an uncommitted linebacker out of Menlo Park (Calif.) with torpedo-like finishing ability, was named the most valuable defensive player of the all-star game. His Team Mauka lost, 27-7, but he was seemingly everywhere in and out of the box, including a fast-closing sack of Team Makai quarterback Gunner Cruz. He […]

OIA football coordinator Harold Tanaka gave the proverbial “thumbs up” in his assessment of last fall’s first year of the OIA-ILH alliance. “It brought interest and an increase in attendance was a big factor,” Tanaka said by phone Friday. “I thought the competitiveness that was brought out was intriguing for everyone.” The 2018 season was the first time the OIA and ILH combined for a fully integrated regular-season schedule. It served to mend some frayed relations between the leagues that […]

The Polynesian Bowl is thriving in Year 3, with the amount of four- and five-star prospects increasing each year. As a result, the uptick in national recruits has led to fewer slots for local players as the game becomes more prominent and exclusive. Tamatoa Falatea knows he’s part of a select few, but the Punahou senior has showed he can do more than just hang with elite competition. During live practice sessions at Aloha Stadium, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser All-State wide […]