'Aiea DL makes verbal commitment known

Scout.com spoke Sunday evening with Lawrence Lagafuaina, a 6-foot-2, 310-pound defensive lineman from 'Aiea High School in Honolulu. Lagafuaina had just returned from his first official visit - to Washington - and gave his trip a 10. Was it enough to earn the Huskies and first-year head coach Steve Sarkisian a verbal commitment?

"Yeah, I made a commitment," Lagafuaina told Scout.com. "(Sarkisian) was really happy. He was fired up."

But there's a kicker. Lagafuaina has an official visit already planned for the home school, the University of Hawai'i, this coming weekend, and he plans on taking it. And with written scholarship offers from Washington, Hawaii, California, UCLA and UNLV, he could even take another visit before sitting down and making his final decision.

So what was it about the weekend in Seattle - punctuated by the Huskies' 42-10 romp of California - that intrigued Lagafuaina? "It was just great," he said. "It was something different that I had never seen before, and I had a great experience. The game was awesome and the team was ready to play."

Lagafuaina wants to pursue Culinary Arts in college, and Washington used another big man from the islands - freshman DL Semisi Tokolahi - to show Lagafuaina the ropes, Husky-style.

"They took us around, showed us all the places we would go and they talked to me about the classes I would be taking," he said. He also spoke with UW Defensive Coordinator Nick Holt. "He talked to me about how they like me at both (defensive) end and DT."

And then came his talk with Sarkisian. "It was great," Lagafuaina said of his time with the UW head man. "He just asked me how my trip was and how did I feel about it. I told him it was great and I made a verbal commitment."

Lagafuaina made sure to point out that he's still visiting other schools, and he'll take time even beyond that to make sure his commitment to the Huskies is the right one for him. "I'm definitely going to think about it," he said.

Lawrence Lagafuaina Scout.com Profile