Carlos Cadet is Kubasaki’s quarterback and one of three threats out of the Dragons backfield. (Tiffany Mae Okamura/Special to Stripes)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – Kubasaki put together an unbeaten football season, recorded its last three wins by shutout –

including a 33-0 semifinal playoff triumph over Nile C. Kinnick – and stands at the cusp of its first Far East Division I title since 2013.

Dragons coach Tony Alvarado doesn’t seem impressed at his team’s accomplishments thus far, though. Not when Kubasaki is facing a Kadena team in Friday’s title game that has won a Pacific-record eight D-I crowns, including last year’s.

Forget that Kubasaki beat Kadena twice in this regular season, Alvarado says.

“Forget whatever you know,” Alvarado said. “It’s a brand new game. We have to play a solid best football game as we’ve played all season. Kadena is the defending champion and we have to take it from them, regardless of our record.”

And the Panthers know they can’t just wave eight banners at the field and expect Kubasaki to crumble, longtime Kadena coach Sergio Mendoza said.

“We’re going to have to play a complete game, play as fast and as aggressively as we can, every single play, every down,” Mendoza said. “These games come down to three or four plays, so we have to come out on the right end of those plays.”

Kadena's Hajime Reed is one of three threats out of the Panthers backfield. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)

Haustyn Lunsford teams with fellow Kubasaki backs Carlos Cadet and Lukas Gaines to form a formidable attack for the Dragons. (Tiffany Mae Okamura/Special to Stripes)

DeShaun Nixon is trouble both running and passing the ball for Kadena; Kubasaki’s Tre Johnson is part of a defense that coach Tony Alvarado says swarms to the ball. (Heather Mendoza/Special to Stripes)

Far East football playoffs began in 2005 with Kubasaki winning twice, most recently in 2013. That was the first of four times the teams have faced each other with the D-I title on the line. Kadena beat Kubasaki 35-20 in last year’s D-I final.

The Panthers have won the D-I title eight times, including the last two, and has appeared in a record 13 D-I title games.

This time, the Dragons and Panthers will do battle at 6 p.m. Friday at Kubasaki’s Mike Petty Stadium. It’s where the Dragons beat Kadena for the second time this season, 26-0 on Sept. 30.

The teams each feature explosive players: the Panthers have running backs Hajime Reed, Ethan Ferch and Flint Barton and quarterback DeShaun Nixon and the Dragons feature quarterback Carlos Cadet and running backs Haustyn Lunsford and Lukas Gaines.

But the “three-headed Dragon,” as observers call them, is “nothing” without the play of a smallish but quick line, Alvarado said.

“We’re not the biggest or the strongest, but they understand what their responsibilities are,” Alvarado said. “It’s a team game.”

The Dragons also don’t have the largest defensive players, but “they swarm to the ball, they attack the ball and give up nothing,” Alvarado said of a unit he calls the “black-shirt defense.”

On the other sideline, the Panthers possess quite a few large players in the interior, on both offense and defense, which helped Kadena record two shutout victories this season.

But Mendoza says he and his players know they’re facing a handful.

“Kubasaki is a talented and disciplined team,” Mendoza said. “They’ll be a very tough opponent. They’re coached well, also. They can hit you in all sorts of different ways.”

It will be a battle of two teams who are as familiar with each other as next-door neighbors.

“We have to play the most disciplined football that we have played all year long. But I think we’re capable of doing it.” Mendoza said.