Ten minutes after half time both teams' fortunes changed, with Aotea scoring six converted tries to win 49 to 46.
"I still can't quite believe it's happened," Te Huki says.
"It's a bit surreal."
He admits having felt a bit of disbelief at those first 50 minutes.
"We weren't playing that great," he says.
"I felt Marist were playing well and fully deserved to be getting all those points.
"It's not that we weren't not trying, things just weren't falling into place."
There was always the thought in the back of his mind that he didn't want the game to end at a score of 43 to seven.
"You're kind of thinking if we can make it respectable we'll be fine and for the last few tries you're kind of in with a chance," Te Huki says.
"The excitement tends to build and you're thinking, no, we're going to run out of time. At the end of the day, we had a bit of time up our sleeve and we managed to win."
Aotea has had a hugely successful season this year, winning five out of seven games, breaking a dry spell of about six or seven years.
Their record this season has given them a chance at promotion to premiers.
Te Huki says the team had been meeting little goals all season just to make the semi-finals.
Their shot at the final on Friday guarantees them premiership rugby next year.
"Just having those little goals before the bigger prize has probably helped us, in regards to getting things ticked off to enable us to compete in the final."
Te Huki is grateful for the support from the crowd.
"The supporters are so loyal. I think they are a huge part of why we came back. You look around and they haven't left.
"They brought us home. We could hear them, see them, they were important to us.
"Full credit to our guys, they seemed to be thinking we've still got this and proved that. I've spoken to a lot of supporters, they were in disbelief but so proud of what these guys did."
Te Huki also believes the committee has helped.
He says for the last few years it had been all the same faces, but now younger people had stepped up and it was more vibrant.
Giving the clubrooms a facelift had also added to the new 'lease on life'.
"Those older members that went through the struggle are still there but now they can step back a little bit because they've got more time, as opposed to just focusing on keeping Aotea running."
The club is now gearing up for the final at McLean Park on Friday night at 7.10pm.