By Wes Nakama

In a fantastic feel-good finish almost made for Hollywood, Andy Nguyen kicked an 18-yard field goal as time expired Friday night to lift Moanalua to a thrilling 24-21 victory over visiting Wai’anae.

A near-capacity crowd of about 3,000 watched Na Menehune improve to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in OIA Division I. Wai’anae, which overcame deficits of 14-0 in the first-quarter and 21-6 in the second to tie it at 21-21 in the third, fell to 1-3, 1-1.

As a sophomore two years ago, Nguyen missed a similar chip shot that could have boosted Moanalua to a big victory at Kamehameha, which escaped with a 21-21 tie. Na Menehune had started that season 1-1, but proceeded to lose five of their last six games and Nguyen said he felt so bad about that crucial missed field goal and letting down his teammates, he thought about quitting the sport.

“This year and last year, everybody’s just been supporting me,” said Nguyen. “(They say), ‘After a bad kick, just move forward, you don’t even have to think about it.’ Move on to the next one, that’s what’s important to me.”

After Moanalua stopped the Seariders on their final possession Friday, Jayce Bareng returned a punt 35 yards to the Wai’anae 15. Kalino Judalena then carried the ball four straight times to give Na Menehune fourth-and-goal from the 1, and they let the clock tick down to 2 seconds before calling a timeout and sending in the field goal unit with the ball on the left hashmark.

“I asked the ref, ‘Can we move the ball to the middle?’ And he was like, ‘No, cannot,’ ” Nguyen said. “I was a little bit nerve-wrecked, but my line, my snapper, my holder — I trust them with my life. All I gotta do is put my head down and swing through, and that’s what I did.”

The line-drive kick was low and wobbly — not end-over-end — but barely cleared the crossbar.

“That was probably the ugliest kick of his career, but that’s OK, nobody’s gonna see that,” Moanalua coach Andrew Manley said. “I’m just damned proud of that kid. He practices (that angle) all the time, and we see him punch it through all the time. I’m just so proud of him, and this whole team.”

Early on, it did not appear the game would come down to a last-second field goal. On Wai’anae’s opening possession, Na Menehune defender Tyson Alualu-lu picked off a pass and returned it 39 yards to the Seariders’ 25, and Moanalua cashed in four plays later on Isaac Harney’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Caleb Dela Pena-Pihana. Nguyen’s extra point made it 7-0.

On the ensuing series, safety Shonn Keaunui intercepted another pass at midfield and returned it 52 yards to the house, and Nguyen’s PAT pushed the lead to 14-0 with 5:41 still to play in the first quarter.

But Wai’anae responded with an impressive 11-play, 91-yard scoring drive capped by Alika Idica, Jr.’s 14-yard run with 7:30 remaining in the second quarter. The two-point conversion attempt failed.

Na Menehune answered quickly with an eight-play, 74-yard drive culminating in Harney’s 27-yard TD pass to La’akea Tapaoan, and Nguyen tacked on the extra point to extend the lead to 21-6 with 4:05 left. 

But on the ensuing kickoff, Slater Kaleiohi fielded the ball at his own 3, darted up the middle and then bounced to the right sideline and sprinted away from the last defender to the end zone for a 97-yard return back to the hale. The two-point conversion run failed, but the touchdown closed it to 21-12, and on the ensuing possession, an errant punt snap rolled past Nguyen and he was forced to kick it out of the end zone for a safety which cut the margin to 21-14.

Another punt snap later sailed over Nguyen’s head on Moanalua’s first possession of the second half, and he was able to retrieve it but a rushed and short punt allowed the Seariders to take over at Na Menehune’s 26.

Five plays later, quarterback George Mier scored on a keeper from four yards out, and Brysen Ferreira’s PAT tied the game at 21-21 with 8:40 remaining in the third quarter.

“We knew (the Seariders) weren’t going to quit,” Manley said. “We talked about this the whole week — especially playing a team from Wai’anae, these guys are going to fight to the very end.”

After being hired as Moanalua’s head coach last year, Manley sought out Nguyen and convinced him not to give up the fight in his football career.

“I was looking for a kicker, (players) said, ‘We got this kid named Andy, heckuva guy,’ ” Manley said. “So I had to go find him and pulled him back out, and I just told him, ‘Hey come have fun, we’re not going to put a lot of pressure on you.’ He practiced … (and now) in my opinion, he’s one of the best kickers in the state.”

In addition to three touchbacks, Nguyen boomed a 67-yard punt and had another punt of 38 yards with no return. He credited the father of JV punter Duke Kane-Scholtz with working with him this past summer on the finer points of kicking and punting.

“I gotta give all the props to him,” Nguyen said. “During last season and the summer, he would see my kickoffs be short, I would be stuttering too much and he helped me throughout the whole summer to fix it. From then on, it’s just muscle memory for me now.”

Most importantly, Nguyen learned an invaluable life lesson about dealing with highs and lows.

“That lesson — even though it was a bad thing (at first), it helped me to keep persevering and keep pushing, never give up even when times get tough.

“No kicker is perfect and going to make every single kick. So that’s why it’s important if you miss a kick, to just reflect on what you did wrong, and then move on to the next one and don’t think about it too much.”

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