KAILUA-KONA — The first step towards history will begin at home for Konawaena and Hilo.
In the official bracket announcement by the HHSAA on Monday, both the Division I champion Vikings and D-II title winning Wildcats are slated to host semifinal matchups at their home fields.
The top-seeded Vikings will host MIL champion Maui on Nov. 4 at Wong Stadium. Konawaena will see the OIA champion — either Waipahu or Pearl City — at Julian Yates Field on Nov. 3.
Hilo is seeking to be the first BIIF D-I squad to win a game in the tournament. The inaugural Division I tournament was in 1999 and the Big Island has been 0 for 18 since. Last year the Viks came close, but narrowly fell 26-25 to Leilehua.
This year the Viks won’t have to deal with any OIA squads. On the other side of the bracket is KIF champion Kauai, which will play either Saint Francis or Damien as the ILH representative.
It’s the third year in a row that a state playoff game is being hosted at Julian Yates Field and the second year that Konawaena enters the tourney as the No. 2 seed in D-II.
In 2015, Konawaena welcomed Damien for a first round matchup and won 42-33. The win was the first for the Wildcats in the HHSAA tournament, and just the fourth overall for the BIIF (Hawaii Prep 2004 and ’09 , Kamehameha ‘14). The Wildcats eventually fell to Radford 48-46 in the semifinals.
Lahainaluna visited Kealakekua a year ago, and bested the BIIF champs 28-14. The hard-running Lunas went on to win the state title.
Waipahu (7-0, 9-0) and Pearl City (6-1, 7-2) battle it out for the right to face the Wildcats on Thursday. Waipahu won the regular season matchup against its OIA rival, 37-6.
With the changes this season to the state tournament format, each bracket it made up of just four teams, as opposed to eight in D-I and six in D-II last year. With just one victory, a BIIF squad could be playing on the state championship stage for the first time.
The Open Division, which features the top four teams in the state, will be a battle between ILH D-I champ Saint Louis and the OIA’s top three teams, which is still to be decided. All Open contests will be played at Aloha Stadium.
The three state final games will be played as a triple-header at Aloha Stadium on Nov. 18.