Fans decked in red streamed into the Lahainaluna High School football arena, snacking on nachos and venison chili, bopping to the high school band’s performance of “Sweet Caroline,” and exchanging long hugs with next-doorneighbors and schoolmates.
It was homecoming, and for numerous of the fans, coaches, and the gamers themselves, being back at the arena was the closest thing to feeling at home since the deadliest United States wildfire in more than a century leveled their town.
“I wear’t understand if I can put into words how much it implies to Lahaina,” stated offensive lineman Morgan “Bula” Montgomery, who has lived in 3 various hotels with his household consideringthat their house structure burned down. “Just looking in the stands, you see all the old-timers coming out, all the alumni and even the little kids – simply all kind of ecstatic, waiting for that veryfirst breeze.”
Classes resumed last week at Lahainaluna High and at the 2 other public schools that madeitthrough the Aug. 8 fire, and on Saturday night, Lahainaluna’s university and junior university football groups played their veryfirst home videogames, both healing wins, providing the neighborhood a twinkle of hope amidst a disaster that declared at least 99 lives.
Tickets for homecoming at the 3,000–person–capacity arena offered out in 7 minutes, stated Principal Richard Carosso – an indicator of how severely the neighborhood required it.
Perched on a hillside, the school gets its name from its place ignoring historic Lahaina: “Luna” implies “above” in Hawaiian.
Before the fire, fans at the arena might see the lights shimmering from the communities down listedbelow. Now, assoonas the sun goes down, there is darkness.
As Mary-Ann Kobatake showedup at the arena to cheer on her boy, No. 33 James Lukela–Kobatake, she declined to appearance towards the ravaged town, where her own home was amongst the 2,200 structures that burned.
“I no like appearance over there,” she stated in Hawaii Pidgin, spoken by numerous in the crowd.
But being back on school was soothing for the 1993 Lahainaluna graduate: “We still have a location we can come home to,” she stated.
It was for Heather Filikitonga, too. A 2001 graduate and mom of a JV gamer, she might see the gutted stays of her home structure from the stands.
“If they can get on the field and discover some normalcy in their life,” she stated of the gamers, “then I can do the exactsame.”
Similar to high school football in other American little towns, Lahainaluna’s powerhouse program is a source of pride. It wo