Coach Mellor Says California Camp Key To Mustangs’ Play
By Jack Danilewicz
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Kalaheo High’s now-customary trips to California each July are a tradition likely to stay if head coach Chris Mellor has his way. He hopes playing in the state tournament also will be an annual thing for the program.
“We traveled across the Pacific to get better, and we went into practice being competitive. It was well-worth the effort to raise that money,” said Mellor, whose team will make a first-ever appearance in the DII state football championships later this month.
As it prepares for Friday’s Division II OIA championship game against Kaimuki (4:30 p.m. on OC-16 and 1500 AM) at Aloha Stadium, Mellor believes his team benefited greatly from the experience of going to a weeklong football camp at Sonoma State University last July, where they lived closely together in addition to competing against California teams.
The cost of their trip was $37,000, or about $1,000 per person, and it marked the third year in four for a Mustangs visit. Mellor is from California and played at Oakland Tech during his prep years. Prior to Kalaheo, he was a JV coach under Bob Ladouceur at De La Salle, which is known nationally for its record 151-game win streak.
Understandably, depth was never an issue at De La Salle. At Kalaheo, Mellor’s teams have thrived with smallish rosters by developing a slew of two-way standouts. The school currently has only 750 students, but it has 34 on its varsity roster and another 45 on its JV roster. (The JV also is playing for the DII OIA title against Waipahu.)
Kalaheo (6-3) had come within a game of clinching a state tournament berth each of the last three years, but it got over the hump by defeating Waipahu 43-29 in the OIA semifinals. It had lost to the Marauders 31-20 in the regular season, but were missing four two-way players in that game, four of them on the offensive line. Kalaheo went into the Waipahu game after being upset the week before by McKinley, so players had to recover their swagger.
“The kids were super resilient and focused - I couldn’t have asked for more (preparation-wise),” Mellor said after the McKinley loss. “Our message to the kids was that we’ve been at this since February, and we’d traveled to California to get ready for this, and it’s not going to be taken away from us.
“I was impressed with the boys. We could do no wrong for most of the game. We were clicking on all cylinders. It was nice to have a good performance when it counts the most. We’re peaking and coming together as a team at the right time.”
The rematch between the Mustangs and Kaimuki, who prevailed 14-13 over Kalaheo Sept. 18, promises to be an instant classic. Kalaheo missed a two-point conversion in the fourth quarter of that game that would have put them over the top.
Even so, Mellor welcomed having a bye week to prepare for Friday.“We were pretty healthy going into Waipahu, and we want to be more healthy - even if it means they are, too,” he said.
As in their last meeting, the run games will be featured. Kalaheo rushed for 291 yards (130 by Jesse Carney) while Kaimuki (9-1) churned out 219 of their own on the ground, all but 10 of those by running back Chester Sua.
Mellor is hoping for a big game from his linebacker corps, which includes Zane Lauriano, Reynolds Gonsalves, Dustin Maneja-Poole, Quincy Mason and Carney.
“We have to contain Sua and keep our eyes on other things,” he said.
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