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Loft, Kamaka-Brayce honored

The Maui News 2023 MIL Football All-Stars

Kamehameha Schools Maui quarterback Makana Kamaka-Brayce (in photo) and Lahainaluna linebacker Teva Loft (second photo) were the choices of the league’s coaches as The Maui News Maui Interscholastic League Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, respectively. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos
Lahainaluna linebacker Teva Loft
Teva Loft and Makana Kamaka-Brayce both grew up playing football, and in one of the most unusual seasons the Maui Interscholastic League has ever seen, the pair of seniors stood at the head of the class in 2023. For the second time in three seasons, Kamaka-Brayce led his Kamehameha Schools Maui team to the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Division II state championship game. While they lost a nail-biter 31-28 to Waimea, it is a senior season Kamaka-Brayce will never forget. After he put up remarkable numbers -- 1,756 passing yards, 23 touchdowns, six interceptions and 61.7 percent completion rate (124 for 201) -- the 6-foot, 190-pound quarterback is The Maui News 2023 MIL Offensive Player of the Year. "It's awesome," Kamaka-Brayce said of winning the award for the second time after also getting the nod in 2021 as a sophomore when the Warriors reached the first state final in school history. "This year I was really just focusing on the team. After what happened junior year with our record, I just wanted to win. That was my main goal this year, was to make it back to the championship game. "And I think just having that mentality helped, helped me to stay more relaxed throughout the year and just perform better." Last season, Kamaka-Brayce battled injury throughout the season as he struggled to recoup his sophomore form. "I actually tore my labrum training before the season," Kamaka-Brayce said. "I didn't know until the summer and at that point it was a little too late (to have surgery to repair it), so I just played through it." Kamaka-Brayce returned to top form this season, also without surgery. "I just rehabbed and I worked on it a lot," he said. "I never got it looked at again, like an MRI, but I feel 100 percent. It would get a little stiff here and there (this season), but it felt a lot better than last year." The number that Kamaka-Brayce is most proud of is the 7-2 mark the Warriors put on the field, the best winning percentage in school history. "One thing that I feel like our team always talks about -- and, of course, we are a Christian school -- and we have religion throughout the team, it's just like everything is God's plan, so it played out how it should have and we lost the games we lost because we played how we did, it wasn't because the other team was better," Kamaka-Brayce said. "It's just we made mistakes. We had a super-solid team and those games played out the way they did because they were supposed to, I think." Kamaka-Brayce is joined on the MIL first-team offense by teammates Frank Kahoa Abreu (wide receiver/slot back), Dylan Schnitzer (WR/SB), and Pa'u Spencer (offensive line); Lahainaluna's Kaulana Tihada (running back), Morgan "Bula" Montgomery (offensive line) and Kalaeloa Tancayo (offensive line); King Kekaulike's Jordan Yoro (running back), Kalelepono Wong (utility) and James Kimo Moniz-Kekumu (offensive line); and Maui High's Braden Albrecht (WR/SB) and Sione Ngalu (offensive line). "I mean, yeah, we had a ton of fun," Kamaka-Brayce said. "This year, I felt like our team was super close. We did a lot of bonding preseason and I think just being in the weight room lifting with each other throughout the summer, we grew super close. So, we just had that tight connection throughout the whole year." Kamaka-Brayce leaves Kamehameha Maui as the school's all-time leading passer and one of the most prolific ever to throw a football in the MIL. "Yeah, definitely," he said when asked if he left a legacy at the school. "Coach (Ulima) Afoa always talks about starting a winning tradition and what it takes to be winners, just being committed in the offseason. Our senior class was really good at that and we all bought in from our sophomore year. Seeing that (with) COVID, not having a freshman year, we were just super motivated from the start and that carried on throughout the three years." Loft, a 6-2, 205-pound middle linebacker, led his Lahainaluna team with his ferociousness on the field. He put on 30 pounds over the offseason as he grew from an honorable mention MIL selection in 2022 to The Maui News MIL Defensive Player of the Year this season. "Amazing, that's a goal that I set at the start of that season," Loft said of the MIL DPOY nod. "I wanted to be the defensive player of the year. That means so much." Loft is joined on the MIL first-team defense by Lahainaluna teammates Kuola Watson (defensive back) and Avery Baybayan (defensive back); Kamehameha Maui's Kanekoa Maielua-Kekiwi (defensive line), Ronin Souza (linebacker), Kaonohi Casco (utility) and Keegan Gantala (defensive back); Maui High's Ngalu (defensive line), the only two-way first-teamer, and Ofa Falekaono (linebacker); King Kekaulike's Ulufale Lafaele (defensive line); and Baldwin's Pita Takafua (defensive line) and Toa Mataafa-Grove (linebacker). Tihada, Abreu, Moniz-Kekumu, Maielua-Kekiwi and Falekaono were unanimous first-team selections among the MIL's five voting coaches. The Lunas endured the effects of the devastating Aug. 8 wildfire that ravaged Lahaina, from the delay of school, to attending school and practicing in Kihei for a month, to starting and playing their schedule under a worldwide media microscope, to the emotional highs and lows of running unbeaten through their five-game MIL slate, to losing at the final gun, 29-28 to Kapaa, in their state quarterfinal. "Just so grateful to have a season," Loft said. "That scare at the start of the season, for me with the fire and stuff, it just ... I feel like that made me work twice as hard, especially as a linebacker, in my drills. "I just thought of, like, 'What if I wasn't playing right now?' So, I just took advantage of those moments. Loved it." Loft said the feeling of walking out onto the Sue Cooley Stadium turf for the Lunas' first home game on Oct. 21 against Baldwin is a feeling he will never forget. "That was a special feeling, just seeing the stands full of red, it was amazing," Loft said. The Lunas kept their MIL winning streak alive with a dramatic 19-13 win over Kamaka-Brayce and the Warriors on Oct. 14 at War Memorial Stadium, a streak that now stands at 44 and dates back to 2016. Both POYs said that is a game they will not forget from their senior seasons, as well. Both also said they plan to continue their football careers at the junior college level or higher in the fall. For guiding the Lunas through the toughest of seasons, Lahainaluna co-head coaches Dean Rickard and Bobby Watson were the choices of their peers as MIL Coaches of the Year. Kamaka-Brayce said that the MIL is a tough league. "Yeah, the MIL, it's solid, we don't always get the same amount of exposure of the (Interscholastic League of Honolulu) or all the Oahu teams, but there's a ton of talent all over and there's a lot of motivated kids and kids who love the sport and just want to get better," Kamaka-Brayce said. "I think there's always been talent, and sooner or later it's just going to get the attention it deserves." * Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com. [gallery ids="1157544,1157545,1157543"]

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