UH vs Fresno State Wrap-Ups

Here's last night's news and highlights from KFVE, KITV and KHON. Rob DeMello had the quote of the night, talking about Ryan Mouton's kickoff return for TD:

Senior return man Ryan Mouton put the rubba slippas on his hands and boogied.

DeMello also interviews Tua Mahaley and Inoke Funaki on the phone. KHON's Marisa Yamane has a report on Oceanic's technical difficulties in the first quarter. Thanks again to Chawan Cut for the compilation.



The Honolulu Advertiser has stats and scoring breakdowns of the Warriors victory over the Bulldogs.

The Star-Bulletin has game stats and this quote from Greg McMackin:

"This is the best total team victory I've ever been involved in," Hawaii coach Greg McMackin said. "The kids competed to the end."

Here are some quotes from Stephen Tsai's wrap-up of the game.

"This is as tough as loss as I've had since I've been here," said Pat Hill, in his 12th season as Fresno State head coach. "I've never been around a game with that many turnovers."

"Happy can't explain how I feel," Funaki said. "I'm so proud of these guys. It was like us against the world when we came to Fresno. All of Fresno was against us."

Kelly said: "We will always have the bandwagon (open) to anyone who wants to join us. But extra kudos to the fans who never left. We have thousands of fans who are busting their guts yelling for us, and we appreciate them."

Some quotes from Jason Kaneshiro's wrap-up.

"This is a lot sweeter," senior linebacker Solomon Elimimian said, comparing last night's drama to UH's 68-37 win in Fresno in 2006. "We really needed to win as a team today and that's what we did. Everybody had each other's backs."

"We've been in a dry spell and like Coach Mack said, when turnovers come, they start coming in bundles," defensive end David Veikune said.

Daniel Lyght of the Fresno Bee has a quote from Bulldogs running back Lonyae Miller.

"Without the turnovers -- without the fumbles and the interceptions -- it's easily a blowout," running back Lonyae Miller said. "We killed ourselves."

They were so super-disciplined not committing any penalties the whole night, it's just so strange that they lacked the same discipline taking care of the ball.

Speaking of which, Damin Esper has a special to the Star-Bulletin, writing about all those turnovers.

"You just can't make that many mistakes," Hill said of his team's six miscues. "It's very hard to overcome that. You can't put your defense on a 30-yard field most of the night."

No, you can't. And although Fresno State rallied and gave itself a chance to preserve its national ranking, eventually, the Warriors prevailed, 32-29 in overtime.

"Obviously, that was a very, very tough loss," Hill said. "But I've got to give a lot of credit to Hawaii. Six turnovers -- I think that's a record since I've been here."

In a special to the Advertiser, Bryant-Jon Anteola has a game summary.

With 51 seconds left in regulation and a chance to potentially win the game — and give Fresno State its first lead — Kevin Goessling attempted a 36-yard field goal. But Hawai'i's Antwan Mahaley blocked it.

"It felt like a good hit, but the ball was probably a little low," Goessling said. "Credit Hawai'i. They got a jumper up there."

Jason Kaneshiro highlights the great play of the UH special teams. Here's an excerpt on Dan Kelly:

With a shot to give Hawaii a victory in overtime, Hawaii kicker Dan Kelly's thoughts left Bulldog Stadium, drifting to the days leading up to that moment and the time he'd spent with his girlfriend, Kelly Braden.

"I was thinking about her and the weekend we had, and after that my mind shut off," Dan Kelly said.

The senior, who entered the night 2-for-6 on field goals this season, then drilled his 33-yard kick to send the Warriors to a rousing 32-29 overtime win over No. 22 Fresno State last night and trigger a Warrior celebration.

"That's something I should do more often," he said of his pre-kick thoughts. "I should just stop thinking, because when I think I screw up. I should just be a dumb animal, run out there and do my job."

The Iceman may be a dumb animal, but he does know what love eeyuzz.



More on Kelly from Ferd Lewis.

His first effort last night, an extra point try that hit the right upright, didn't inspire much more confidence.

"That was a rookie move on a veteran's — my — part," Kelly said "We weren't ready. I should have let the clock wind down and taken the five yards (in delay of game penalty) because we ended up rushing it and kicking with only 10 guys on the field. That was a bad move on my part. It won't happen again."

Last night's kick, "didn't have as much on the line as our Nevada game last year (when UH was 9-0) but for our morale and our team, this was a more intense win in every shape."

Also from the article, Ferd writes that UH held off on doing the post-game haʻa because of a request by Pat Hill:

"Pat Hill asked if we would please not dance on his field afterward 'cause it was a great game; that's why we didn't do the ha'a," McMackin said.

"I told the kids, 'let's celebrate with the fans.' I respect Pat Hill."

Lewis has a column about the redemption of Kelly and Inoke Funaki.

"We were hurtin' (after) last week, but we believed in each other, Funaki said. "The guys believed in me."

The Warriors — and their coaches — told him so, pointedly.

UH quarterbacks coach Nick Rolovich said, "I asked him: 'Do you want to be the starting quarterback? and he said, 'yes,' " Rolovich recalled. "I said, 'this coaching staff, everyone believes in you, so go out and do it. We know you can.' "

As good a night as Kelly had, Fresno's kicker had the complete opposite.

In the chaos and daze that followed another of those annually inexplicable Fresno State losses, Bulldog Stadium security and a few school officials flanked kicker Kevin Goessling.

Oh, Goessling.

Not again.

Some great lines about the game from the Fresno Bee's Matt James.

Goessling did something even Van Damme and Chuck Norris couldn't do. In seconds, he kicked an entire stadium into silence.

In the Bulldogs defense, Mouton was part magician, and also, it appeared from the results, covered in a few gallons of petroleum jelly.

And finally, courtesy of addahknowjoe, perhaps the real reason UH won the game...



You cannot cheat, baby!

UPDATE: Woops, forgot to include the HawaiiAthletics.com article about the game, which includes links to a box score, notes and quotes.