KEAAU – It’s a dilemma that Keaau High football co-coach Ian Van Cleave is starting to come to terms with.

It’s OK to make limited references to Chaminade in Kaila Lizama’s presence, but it’s best to deal with one rival at a time.

Hilo High football coach Kaeo Drummondo took a contingent of his skill position players to a seven-on-seven tournament earlier this year on the mainland, so he’s had a small hand in perpetuating a false perception.

With only a handful of years in the rearview mirror, it’s been a short but almost neon-style history for the Ka’u Coffee Trail Run, scheduled for its sixth renewal Saturday a little after daybreak, when more than 250 trail runners will take off in Pahala on an adventurous run popular for two reasons.

In many ways, home is just like former two-sport Hilo High standout Kalei Tolentino-Perry left it.

Elijah Kahele • football

Common sense tells you there’s a larger interest, per capita, in high school baseball here on the Big Island, because there are few communities the size of Hilo that have churned out as many major league draftees as has our city by the bay.

PAHALA – The 11-man evolution is on.

Samson Thomas called the onslaught an eye-opener.

As Hilo’s football team put up points on the scoreboard Saturday against Waiakea at a lightning-quick speed, the first-half clock, alternatively, moved at its regular pace.

Kohala’s football program obviously remembered something from its five years of eight-man football: Don’t bother passing when you can run.

Just because Jodi Lillie only scored one goal last season doesn’t mean it was a fluke.

Chris Leonard sat in his office at the UH-Hilo athletic complex earlier this week like many other coaches, but his perch was a little different.