MILILANI — The Mililani Trojans proved there can be pressure in the preseason.
In an early marquee matchup of the 2022 prep football calendar, the Mililani defense hounded Saint Louis’ inexperienced quarterbacks and forced timely turnovers in a 28-7 Trojans non-league win at John Kauinana Stadium on Friday night.
Junior defensive lineman Jabiel Lauvao had four of the Trojans’ 11 official sacks of the Crusaders’ alternating signal-callers Kahi Graham and Oha Kamakawiwoole, and Trojans sophomore quarterback Treston McMillan threw for 308 yards and four touchdowns in the victory.
Mililani coach Rod York downplayed the victory over the storied Crusaders, who beat Mililani 27-25 in a tight Open Division state semifinal in December.
“We want to beat them in the postseason, not the preseason,” York said. “But overall happy for our guys. We got confidence (from it), but we also made a lot of mistakes.”
Lauvao, a 6-foot-1 junior, said the success pressuring the quarterbacks came down to containing them on their many rollouts. Elias Tania was in on three sacks and fellow linebacker Elijah Nua added a couple of sacks and recovered two Crusader fumbles. Mililani finished with 15 tackles for loss.
“This is just a game. We’re still 0-0. We’ve still gotta have that mentality,” said Lauvao, who also had a key forced fumble near the Mililani goal line in the fourth quarter, recovered by Elijah Nua in the end zone. It set up an 80-yard drive, capped with Andrew Manivong Jr.’s 29-yard TD grab from McMillan to help put the game away.
Just about all of the sacks occurred in the first half, when Mililani went up two scores and settled for a 14-7 lead at halftime. It couldn’t actually have been a tie game at that point; Saint Louis defensive back Ana Monteilh returned an interception of McMillan to the Trojans’ 37 late in the second quarter and the Crusaders advanced to the 19 before Lauvao’s sack of Kamakawiwoole moved the visitors back out of range going into the half.
Saint Louis lost a lot from its state Open Division runner-up team from December — both through graduations and transfers out of the program — and it showed. Sophomore slotback Titan Lacaden was impressive with seven grabs for 93 yards and a touchdown, but the Crusaders could not generate many opportunities else wise and failed to convert on most of the ones they got.
The last time Saint Louis opened the season with a loss to an opponent from Hawaii, it was 2014 — also at Mililani.
Coach Ron Lee acknowledged that there’s much to work on from now to the time Interscholastic League of Honolulu play begins in a month. He chalked up some of Mililani getting to the quarterbacks to a series of bad snaps that had them routinely scuffling to begin plays.
“Kind of where we felt we’d be. We’ve got a lot of young guys on offense,” Lee said. “We had five opportunities. We had three turnovers. We had mistakes with young guys. Quarterbacks, right on down the line.
“But Mililani’s solid. I like the way they play. No mistakes, (just one) turnover. They did a nice job. They got big plays off of defense. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
McMillan showed poise in his first game back from a meniscus injury that knocked him out for most of his freshman season on the varsity. He had two long touchdown balls, 70 yards to Raymond Roller in the first quarter and 76 to Davyn Joseph in the third. He finished 15-for-25 passing.
“Ever since I got hurt, I was working toward the next season already, so I kind of had a head start. I thank God that I’m back out here with my teammates,” McMillan said.
The Trojans will test themselves at home again next week against Mission Viejo (Calif.).
Saint Louis next heads to Kauai to face Kapaa in another potentially compelling matchup next week.
A few more shots from the night:
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.