The difference, it turned out, was a foot.

Richard Torres' 14-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Kapu with 23 seconds left and Kaika Sasaoka's PAT lifted No. 2 Kahuku past No. 1 Saint Louis, 7-6, last night to give the Red Raiders their second consecutive and fifth overall First Hawaiian Bank Division I state football championship.

An Aloha Stadium crowd of 18,870 — the third largest in the eight-year history of the tournament — shook the 50,000-seat structure with earthquake force.

"I worked on that every day," Sasaoka said of the PAT. "My dad (Ken Sasaoka) helps me every day, teaching me how to kick."

The TD pass was only the second completion of the game for Torres. In fact, he didn't complete his first pass until under two minutes left in the game, four plays before the TD strike, which was an out route to Kapu, who toed the left sideline of the end zone.

"I'm just glad everybody didn't give up and everybody put their best into it," Torres said. "Our running backs and receivers were doing their job."

But it was a heartbreaker for the Crusaders (11-1), who broke the scoreless deadlock with 6:52 left in the game when running back Keani Nishigaya scored on an 8-yard run. But a low snap on the PAT try led to the highly reliable Kenton Chun to miss.

"When you come here 11-0 and lose the championship game, it's probably the sickest feeling I've felt in my life," Saint Louis senior defensive end Scott Smith said.

There were missed opportunities for the first three quarters of scoreless ball. Of course, the defenses had a lot to do with it. But a turning point for Saint Louis came early in the fourth quarter, when Kahuku decided to try for a first down on fourth-and-1 at its 49. Defensive lineman Nai Fotu lined up as a running back, took the handoff, but was stopped for a 1-yard loss by linebacker Jordan Alencastre and lineman Ho'oikaika Cavaco-Amoy with 10:25 left.

The Crusaders rode the momentum of the stand by driving 48 yards in eight plays before Nishigaya scored.

Although Kahuku (11-2) was forced to punt after its ensuing possession, so did Saint Louis, which punted, giving the ball back to the Red Raiders with 2:26 left and no timeouts remaining.

But a series of mental errors hurt the Crusaders, starting with an illegal substitution five-yard penalty. On first-and-5 at the Saints' 46, Torres went up the middle for 11 yards. Kahuku then faced third-and-7 at the 33 when Torres completed his first pass of the game, a 6-yarder to Kapu to make it fourth-and-1 at the 27. But Saint Louis got called for illegal participation, a 15-yard penalty, and the ball was moved half the distance to the goal, to the 13.

Smith deflected Torres' first-down pass and Geordan Hanohano dropped Neal Lokotui for a 1-yard loss, bringing third-and-11. That's when Torres dropped back and saw that Kapu had a jump on defensive back Todd Nakano, and fired a perfect strike to the left sideline in the end zone. After Saint Louis called a timeout, the crowd was left in suspense until Sasaoka split the uprights.

In past seasons, PAT kicking was an adventure for Kahuku, which lost games because of its inability to convert its kicks.

"We had some substitution problems," Saint Louis coach Delbert Tengan said. "We rotated guys in. We just didn't get the right substitutions in. The penalties really hurt us down the stretch."

It was the second week in a row the Red Raiders used last-minute heroics to pull out a victory.

With Saint Louis' loss, as well as Kaua'i's earlier in the night, there are no unbeaten teams left in the state.

"No regrets," Saint Louis' Smith said. "We played our hardest. Everybody gave it their all. They got one. They're a good team."

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.