Youngish Falcons Work On Their Timing For Bye Week
By Jack Danilewicz
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Del.icio.usAs the Kalani football team entered its bye week, Falcon first-year coach Glenn Oshiro was as preoccupied with his team’s attitude as he was their execution.
While the Falcons are in the midst of a youth movement this season, their positive mind-set has never wavered despite an 0-5 record to date.
“They’ve played all four quarters of every game so far,” said Oshiro.“We’re staying upbeat and we’re not giving up in the fourth quarter, and that’s a good sign of maturity. We’re headed in the right direction. We’re still having our growing pains, but the kids are finally understanding where we’re coming from. It’s been a good atmosphere around here.”
Kalani, which was to celebrate homecoming over the weekend with a game against Waipahu, returns to action on Friday, October 13, against arch-rival Kaiser.
While the Falcons have a head start on their preparation for that much-anticipated match-up, Oshiro said the bye week will be used to “go back to fundamentals.”
“We’ll reinforce everything we’ve put in to this point, and we want to keep them focused on our goals - academics as well. It’s been a long season, and we want them to relax a little bit, too, and work on some of their community-related projects. We’ll prepare more for Kaiser on the week of that game.”
Although Kalani is still pursuing its first win, Oshiro has been pleased with his defense for much of the season. With that in mind, the Falcons have counted on four key senior returnees - linemen Patrick Akau and Sam Tupou, as well as linebackers Eben Napolean and Jason Lee - to provide the bulk of their leadership to date.
“We’re high on them,” Oshiro said of the foursome.“They’re our leaders, and we’re happy with our progression. We’re accomplishing our small goals on the field.”
Elsewhere on the Kalani roster, youth can be found at almost every position.
“We’re still young, but the positive thing is that we’re maturing,”
Oshiro said. “We haven’t gotten to the point where we execute as we would like to. We execute some plays better than others, but that is something that comes with maturity. We’ll use this week to work on our timing.”
Offensively, the Falcons are led by junior running back Dustin Kimura, who returned to the lineup in time for Kalani’s game with Pearl City last month after having missed all of fall camp with an injury he had suffered during the Falcons’ 7-on-7 summer passing league.
On that note, the Falcons have remained largely injury-free this season.
“We’re nicked up a little bit, but we haven’t had any season-ending injuries, which is a good thing,” Oshiro said.
Following their aforementioned game with Kaiser, the Falcons close out their regular season against Kaimuki on Oct. 20 at Kaiser Stadium.
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