It is state championship week on campus — the Lunas will play 'Iolani in the First Hawaiian Bank Division II football title game at 5 p.m. tomorrow at Aloha Stadium — and the electricity in the air didn't come from any lightning.

Lahainaluna fans routinely fill their side of the stands at War Memorial Stadium, despite dealing with the longest drive for fans of any Maui Interscholastic League football team. Expect a red sea of Lunas fanatics at 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium to watch the school seek its second state team title ever.

Lahainaluna, which dates back to 1831, won the 1982 small-school state boys basketball tournament.

"This school plays a tremendous role in Lahaina,'' Michael Nakano, who has been Lahainaluna principal for 13 years, said to The Maui News. "We had the monarchy here before, we had the capital that moved to Honolulu, then we had the whaling port and that disappeared, then we had the plantation era and the plantations have gone. Right now, the school is the only thing we have left in Lahaina.

"A lot of people went to school here and a lot of them still live in the community. This is their school. Having a boarding program also continues the tradition and the cultural heritage of the school.

"A lot of people come to the school here — and somehow being at Lahainaluna, it touches your heart — and you start to develop a passion for the school," Nakano said.

"That passion revolves around everything else that happens at the school, whether it is athletics, it could be things that we do as a community, David Malo Day. Whatever we try to do, it becomes something very special, and when you say 'Lahainaluna,' that passion ignites those hearts.''

Nakano will be one of the Lunas in the Aloha Stadium seats.

"I actually feel very honored to go to the game,'' he said. "This is a special team. I feel that it is a team that has given a lot, a team that is coachable, a team that never gives up.''

One casualty of the rain was an 80-foot-long sign put up on a fence on Lahainaluna Road on the way to campus by Claire Tillman, the Parent-Community Networking Center facilitator at King Kamehameha III Elementary School, where many Lahainaluna students began their schooling.

"I started last year,'' Tillman said of the long signs she creates for every Lunas football game. "I just got the idea driving up Lahainaluna Road twice a day to take my kids to school, and when I kept seeing that big old fence, I thought, 'Oh, I have an idea.' ''

The sign went up yesterday before dawn and lasted long enough for the 45 players on the team to see each one of their names, along with nicknames and "funny things like 'O-line, get your job done,' or 'D, keep doing what you do,' '' Tillman said.

She was on her way to clean up the drenched, fallen sign when her husband, Mark, called to say that he would help her re-create it on his company's computer.

"We just want them to have something to see as they go to Oahu (this evening),'' she said.

The Lunas will certainly have something to see when they reach Aloha Stadium. Student government officers were busy making their own signs that will be carried by the two representatives who will be making the trip — senate chairman Joel Bumanglag and treasurer Isaiah Santiago.

"The mood on campus right now is determination because the team this year is really good,'' student body president Nathan Ugale said. "Everyone knows that our team is good and stuff. Everyone has faith in our team, we know we are going to do good, and the mood on campus is up there.

"It just shows how much we love our school and how much we care for our school,'' Ugale said.

Setaita Filikitonga, the student body recording secretary, said that although she won't be able to make the trip, she will be there in spirit with hundreds of her classmates.

"Everybody is pumped to go to Oahu to watch the football game,'' Filikitonga said. "They are eager to go and see if we can win the state championship. Everybody wants to go. There are not that many people who are going to be in school on Friday because they are all going to be at the game.''

Lahainaluna has 990 students.

Filikitonga said that the football team helps set the mood for the school year and also indoctrinates freshmen to the Lahainaluna campus.

"At the beginning of the year, the freshmen, some of them at least, don't understand how high school is different from intermediate,'' Filikitonga said. "But when they go to their first football game, it's like a big crowd cheering for the Lunas and they have so much spirit in their school it makes everybody support the football team and back them up 100 percent. It brings our community together.''

Rae Matsumoto has worked in the school's front office for more than 20 years. She said that trips to the Division I state semifinals at Aloha Stadium in 2001 and 2004 were similar in the level of excitement, but the Lunas lost before reaching the title game.

"I remember that, and that was really exciting,'' Matsumoto said. "But this is for the state championship, so a lot of parents, supporters, alumni will be there. Saturday night (after the 52-20 win over Kaimuki to reach the title game), people were going home to book their flights. Lahainaluna has always had that support. I remember the last time we were there, a couple of parents brought people over on their boats because the flights were booked already.''

Yesterday, Matsumoto was busy trying to make travel to O'ahu more efficient by getting the team on two flights instead of the three that were booked for this evening. Matsumoto herself will be going today because she couldn't get a flight tomorrow.

Keola Rogat, the school's career and technical education coordinator, was a boarder at Lahainaluna who graduated in 1994. The boarders awake at 6:45 a.m. and do chores on the campus before school, then do more chores after school, and have mandatory study time from 7 to 9 p.m. each night.

"The first year, definitely the first year I learned just how much school pride there is around this place,'' Rogat said. "The kids really take a pride in ownership around here.''

"This is where we live,'' said third-year boarder Jandy Pacheco, a junior. "We want to make this place as good as it can be.''

Graham Seiki, a business management and technology teacher, has only been at Lahainaluna for two years, but he has fallen deeply for the Luna spirit. He regularly paints his face a variation of red, black and white at football games and at one this season, he added red hair.

"I think in a couple months I realized how much school spirit exists here,'' Seiki said. "And even how much the community gets involved in the school. It's impressive.''

The face paint and hair dye put a smile on the students' faces at MIL games.

"I think the kids really like it,'' Seiki said. "I try to vary the face paint every game. So far I have had a camouflage theme, I have Darth Maul theme from 'Star Wars,' and then I did some other whacky stuff. They think it is pretty cool, but most of them don't recognize me at the games until I talk to them. To be honest, I didn't really watch too many football games until a couple of my students asked me to watch them play. Now, I wouldn't miss one.''