There’s a lot of hard work ahead for Tupu Alualu and the Saint Louis Crusaders.

The Brotherhood suffered its second straight narrow defeat to begin the Alualu era as host Mililani escaped with a 16-14 victory at John Kauinana Stadium on Saturday night.

After the season-opening, 14-13 loss to defending state champion Kahuku on the North Shore last weekend, Alualu said that the road back to respectability for his proud program would be during the week, through the effort it puts in between the Friday and Saturday appearances that others see.

“The game is just a show,” Alualu, who was named head coach in February, said after his team’s 42-yard field-goal attempt to win at Kahuku went wide right. “Losing is not something you like. But there’s a lesson you’re going to learn. You gotta go back, and we gotta practice and work harder.”

Saint Louis had a great chance to bounce back and emerge from Mililani with the road victory against the other team that played in last year's HHSAA Open Division championship game. It led 14-7 with a little more than a quarter to play as it put the ball in the hands of backup quarterback Mose Lilo in the second half.

But some wild miscues cost the Crusaders.

There was an errant snap into the end zone that resulted in a safety and brought Mililani within 14-9 early in the fourth quarter. Saint Louis then subsequently stopped Mililani on the Trojans’ ensuing possession, but the punt protection went awry as the ball fell onto the helmet of a Saint Louis player, allowing the Trojans to recover at the Crusader 30 and score the go-ahead touchdown. Then, most stunning of all, Saint Louis, in its haste to move downfield with no timeouts in the final minute, spiked the ball to stop the clock on fourth down, essentially handing Mililani the win with 48 seconds left.

The last time Saint Louis started 0-2 was in 2014, when the legendary Cal Lee returned to coach and dropped his first three games. By 2016, Lee had brought the Crusaders back to the top as they won the first of four straight HHSAA Open Division championships.

“We’re going to be back. We’re going to be back,” Alualu said after the Kahuku game. “We’re going to go back to the drawing board and see what we need to do. There’s a lot of work to be done. The kids are young. There’s no-name kids here. So we just gotta stay together and keep fighting the fight.”

Mililani’s Lehiwa Kahana-Travis hauled in the winning 23-yard touchdown from Kekoa Koong in the back of the end zone with 2:35 left. Koong, the backup quarterback, started in the stead of star Kini McMillan, who got injured in last week’s win at Kailua and is expected to miss several more weeks.

Saint Louis sat out star receiver Titan Lacaden after he got hurt in the second half against Kahuku.

The Crusaders play at Kamehameha-Maui on Saturday, then meet Farrington the following week in their last game before Interscholastic League of Honolulu play.

Mililani (2-0) has a bye then plays at Liberty (Nev.) on Aug. 31.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.