Atuaia denied place in history

Judging by the OIA football all stars released today, coaches consider Manaia Atuaia the weakest link on Kahuku’s historically good defense.

The selections, which are voted on by the league’s coaches, rewarded the Red Raiders by putting 10 players on the 12-man first team defense. They are all there, from Bradlee Anae to defensive player of the year Keala Santiago.

The OIA selections are always controversial, but it was the one Red Raider relegated to second team that might be the most controversial.

Here are the 2015 teams: http://www.hawaiiprepworld.com/football/ah-hoy-malepeai-top-oia-all-stars/

Atuaia had been selected as a first-teamer in his sophomore and junior years but was judged a second teamer as a senior. That cost him a spot on the OIA’s select list of three-time first teamers.

Mililani running back Vavae Malepeai did join the elite class. Here is what it looks like:

Three-time OIA first teamers
Samson Anguay, Campbell, 2007-09
BJ Beatty, Kahuku, 2003-05
Roger Boyd, Farrington, 2011-13
Burton Coloma, Waialua, 1973-75
Justin Faimealelei, Kaimuki, 1998-2000
VJ Fehoko, Farrington, 2007-09
Pisa Finai, Kahuku, 1971-73
Ikaika Ho, Castle, 2001-03
Orrin Kahalewai, Kaiser, 1977-79
Alex Kaloi, Leilehua, 1970-72
Micah Kia, Mililani, 2003-05
Isaac Laupola, Campbell, 2002-04
Jerry Leaano, Campbell, 2001-03
Vavae Malepeai, Mililani, 2013-15
Adrian Murrell, Leilehua, 1986-88
Tavita Sagapolo, Radford, 1980-82
Louis Santiago, Kahuku, 1957-59
Joseph Siliga, Farrington, 2007-09
Kenneth Souza, Waialua, 1953-55
Taz Stephenson, MIlilani, 2007-09
Mathias Tuitele-Iafeta, McKinley, 2011-13
Kennedy Tulimasealii, Waianae, 2010-12
Russell Wantowski, Radford, 2003-05
Aofaga Wily, Kahuku, 2010-12

Atuaia still has a chance to join an even more elite list with the Star-Advertiser’s All-State team coming out after the season. If he can make the first team again this year, he would join Gerald Welch of Saint Louis as the only football players to be first-team all-state three times while making all league only twice.

A panel of coaches and media vote on the all state team.

Atuaia can begin making his case for that list beginning tomorrow night when the Red Raiders play Waianae in the state semifinals.

Below is a complete list of OIA first teamers since the teams were selected in 1947. The first team was chosen by the Star-Bulletin that season after the ILH team was established decades earlier.

The Rural OIA back in those days was treated as something less than a little brother to the ILH, drawing crowds of around 2,000 without charging attendance to the ILH’s usual 20,000 with a gate. The newspaper wrote in presenting its first OIA All-Star team that it hoped such attention would spur the DOE to put lights and fences around the rural fields and those days came a few years later.

When prep football hit its peak in the 1960s, both newspapers put out separate league teams, this list does not reflect those. It is only one team per year, sometimes the Honolulu Advertiser’s selections and sometimes the Star-Bulletin’s.

The determination on which to choose was made by which paper had the most current coaches voting, to bring it more in line with the way it is presently done.

Feel free to search for your heroes in any manner you please. Report spelling errors to hawaiiprepworld@staradvertiser.com