DISNEY WORLD – Today, the Junior Pee Wee Waianae Tigers beat the Creeks Outlaws 16-8 to secure the 61st Annual DII Junior Pee Wee Pop Warner National Championship, becoming the first Hawaiian Pop Warner football team to win a National Title.
The Tigers have made it to the Pop Warner Super Bowl four times under the leadership of three generations of the Joseph family.
In 2015 the Tigers won their first game at Disney, but fell short in the semi-finals. But this year, the Tigers will be walking away from the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex™ and returning to Honolulu, HI with a National Title under their belts.
Creeks started the game as they have all year, going up first on the score board. Creeks made it 8-0 in the first quarter, but Waianae took the mighty Creeks punch and countered with one of their own to tie the game going into halftime 8-8.
It was a defensive contest once again for the Outlaws, as they excelled in slowing down the high powered Waiana offense. The Tigers averaged 36.0 p.p.g. in the Super Bowl playoffs, yet were held to just 16.0 p.p.g. by the Outlaws.
Waianae found it hard to make their usual game changing plays, as Creek’s bend but don’t break defense forced them to drive methodically down the field.
The Tigers would do so by capitalizing on uncharacteristic Outlaw mistakes. Waianae would punch it in from the one yard line for the deciding score to win their the first ever title.
Creeks falls just short of their goal of winning a Super Bowl, however they had a tremendous season nonetheless.
Congratulations to Coach Owens and the Outlaws as the Super Bowl runners up.
Editors Note: Want to get nominated next year. Teams are selected based on how they finish at state and regional youth tournaments. Have a team going to a state tournament, regional tournament or World Series then email us a picture and results and you might be considered. The cut off for this year was June 1, 2018.
