Hawaii football drops heartbreaker to UCLA

The University of Hawaii football team lost a 16-13 heartbreaker to UCLA on Saturday afternoon, letting an early lead slip away late.

The Rainbow Warriors fell to 1-1, while UCLA was victorious in DeShaun Foster’s head coaching debut.

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In a sold-out Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex of 13,470, an on-campus single sporting event record, the ‘Bows led 10-0 at halftime.

In Hawaii’s first drive of the game, the Rainbow Warriors appeared to go three-and-out but a fake punt from Lucas Borrow advanced the ‘Bows 19 yards on a run. The drive was then capped on a Brayden Schager touchdown pass to a wide open Pofele Ashlock for 19 yards with 7:43 left in the first quarter.

Schager was intercepted at the UCLA 5 with 30 seconds left in the first half by Ramon Henderson, but that play was followed by a Logan Taylor interception off Ethan Garbers back to the UCLA 6. Hawaii then took a 10-0 lead on Kansei Matsuzawa’s 28-yard field goal as the first half clock expired.

UCLA scored in its first possession of the third quarter on a 39-yard Rico Flores Jr. reception from Garbers. On the next possession, Hawaii made its advantage 13-7 on Matsuzawa’s second 28-yard field goal with 4:12 left in the third quarter.

Mateen Bhaghani made a pair of field goals for the Bruins to tie the game at 13, the second of which came with 14:05 left in the fourth quarter from 36 yards.

Both teams appeared willing to grind out the clock out for a field goal, but it was UCLA who was able to do so. Bhaghani made his third field goal of the day from 32 yards with 56 seconds left, draining Hawaii of its timeouts. Hawaii received the ball on a touchback but couldn’t score, with Schager taking a crucial second down sack.

Schager completed 25 of his 42 passes for 227 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions while getting sacked five times and playing through injury. Garbers, who was 6-for-19 in the first half, finished 19-for-38 with 272 yards, one touchdown and an interception.

Defensively, Peter Manuma had a team-high seven tackles and a pass breakup, while Elijah Robinson added 1.5 tackles for loss, including half a sack.

For UCLA, K.J. Wallace had six tackles, including two for loss and a sack.

Hawaii will have a bye week before heading to Texas to face Sam Houston at 1 p.m. HST on Sept. 14.