The schedule sets up ideally for the football team at Konawaena High School and that comes as not the best news for Hilo High as the two teams gear up for next week’s championship game.
“It’s not always like this at the end of the season, but right now, we’re pretty healthy,” said Konawaena coach Brad Uemoto. “We’ve had some lopsided wins and that has given us the opportunity to take some starters out and get others some playing time. We always try to schedule practices in such a way as to limit the injury possibilities, and right now we’re in good shape.”
That sound you may have heard was a collective gulp from the Hilo fan base after two meetings with Kona resulted in a combined 78-6 deficit, following defeats of 51-6 and 27-0.
What to expect the third time around?
“The first time was a pretty good margin (of victory), for us,” said Uemoto, “but the second time was about half of that, so I give them credit, they adjusted, they moved some things around, they definitely made it more difficult for us.
“I don’t think we just played bad the second time, but when you look at the film, we really were our worst enemy. I think we had four or five touchdowns called back on holding penalties, so we definitely need to clean things up.”
Calls to Hilo coach Ed Rocha were not returned, so one presumes the Vikings have been busy with preparations.
They have a varsity only game today at 6 p.m. when they host Waiakea for the second time after a 45-2 victory earlier in the season, but they know the big test is next week.
Kona has been virtually unchallenged this season, with seven consecutive victories, rolling up 427 points in those games, an average of 61 per outing, while allowing just 50 points all season, or an average of seven each game.
“It’s been a matter of fundamentals all week for us,” said Uemoto, “we’ve been breaking things down and working on eliminating mistakes because our worst enemy has been ourselves, and it’s been that way all season.”
Coaches’ instructions are one thing, but with high school players, sometimes the words go in one ear and out the other, but there’s another tool that gets their attention.
“Film has been a great tool for us,” Uemoto said. “We can tell them in practice or in games that their technique is bad, or whatever it might be, but when we turn down the lights and put on the film, they see what we’re talking about.
“Sometimes, during the season, (players) can lose sight of those things when you’re winning games, anyway, but when you can show them the film, it suddenly reinforces what we’ve been saying and has an impact.”
More than most teams, Konawaena focuses on itself rather than deep in depth analysis of its opponents.
“We feel like we have the best offense and defense on the island,” he said, “so if you have that, the way to get more efficient — to get better — is to eliminate your mistakes as much as possible. When they see on film what we’ve been preaching, it helps immensely, it helps everybody.”
The on-field success this season has had a legitimate trickle down effect on the entire squad.
“Our backups are definitely better this time of the year because they have been able to see the film so they have worked on techniques just like the starters. It would be more of a challenge for them to improve if they didn’t have the benefit of seeing themselves on game film.
“Film doesn’t lie,” he said.
Uemoto said he’s not concerned about a letdown against a Hilo team his group has handled already.
“They have some very good players, as we’ve seen,” he said, “but our approach is to compete and, it’s no offense to them or any of our opponents, but we feel we are always better if we can adjust and improve on what we do, rather than concentrating too much on our opponents.”