Circumstances fell into place for the Kailua vs. Castle football rivalry this year.
The neighboring Windward-side schools did not play last year due to Oahu Interscholastic Association’s decision to move away from the East-West divisional alignment. When this year’s schedule came out, the Knights vs. Surfriders was not listed, either.
But, things have changed since the original schedule was made and Castle visits Kailua on Friday at 7:30 p.m. for a regular-season nonleague game.
Originally, Castle was scheduled to play at Pearl City, and Kailua was slated to visit Waipahu in regular-season nonleague openers. But both Pearl City and Waipahu have problems with academically ineligible players and opted out of the games that would not have counted in the OIA standings anyway.
Originally, the problem was going to be solved by downgrading both of those games to scrimmages, but instead the OIA got creative, allowing the Windward schools to play a real game.
The Chargers and Marauders from the Central Oahu neighboring communities of Pearl City and Waipahu will play in a scrimmage on Saturday at the Marauders’ home field at 2 p.m.
Both head coaches — Robin Kami of the Chargers and Bryson Carvalho of the Marauders — say their teams will be ready for the season openers the following week.
The last time Castle and Kailua played, the Surfriders won 23-20 in overtime in 2013. They’ve won three in a row in the series.
The Knights, under coach Nelson Maeda, are coming off of scrimmages against Kalani and Kapolei last week.
The Surfriders, under coach Joseph Wong, got into the swing of things in a tri-scrimmage against St. Francis and Kaiser on Thursday.
Pearl City scrimmaged Campbell and Moanalua last week, and Waipahu was busy with scrimmages in consecutive days against Kaimuki, Campbell and Damien.
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