The Hilo High football team’s season kickoff has been a long time coming.
This week is their bye week. Last week, they were scheduled to play at Lahaina HS — but the game was canceled due to the fire.
Though the cancellation threw the Vikings off of their planned schedule and delayed their chance to get live reps, first-year head coach John Flores and his staff are more concerned about the people of Maui.
“It’s unfortunate what happened over there,” Flores said. “God bless them, all the families out there.”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the folks affected by the fires in Lahaina,” offensive coordinator Dominick Trevino added. “We wish them the best in recovery.”
The Vikings will kick off straight into BIIF action next Friday, Aug. 25 on the road against Konawaena HS.
“By the time our game comes next week, we’re two games behind,” Flores said. “All the other teams had a preseason game and a game this week. I look at it as we have more time to prepare.”
Flores has been coaching at HHS for three years, but has taken on the head coach role for the first time this year. He is joined by both new coaches, and familiar faces like Trevino.
“We have some new faces on the coaching staff, some players that had been here previously, and new players that haven’t been here,” Trevino said.”We’re just trying to take it one step at a time in all aspects of the game — offensively and defensively. On offense, we’ve been trying to work on our verbiage and other concepts — just trying to grill them.”
Like many teams across the isle and the state, the Vikings are underclass-heavy. This year’s seniors, the class of 2024, entered their freshman years in 2020 without the ability to play in high school football games.
Though football returned during fall of 2021, things still weren’t fully normal yet, and many schools’ schedules were limited. So, this year’s class of 2025 juniors also missed out on certain opportunities as freshmen.
“I can say we are rebuilding,” Flores said. “We have a lot of younger kids. My quarterback is a sophomore. We have a lot of talent, just young. We’re hoping to go out there and compete.”
This year, the team’s few seniors have stepped up in order to get their younger teammates up to speed.
“Our team’s been working really hard,” senior linebacker Kai Kaneta said. “Us seniors are pushing our underclassmen really hard and trying to get their energy up every day. It’s a rebuilding process, but every day we’re still giving our 100 (percent). Everybody has potential, so we’re bringing it out of them.”
Hard work has made all the difference, and helped Hilo overcome some mid-summer hiccups.
“It was a rough start at first,” senior Zaeah Flores said, “but we’ve been working hard all summer and the team’s looking good. We’re way more conditioned than we were a few months ago. Everyone’s more sharp — I.Q. is getting up there for everyone.”
The pandemic also set back the Vikings’ team culture. The HHSAA sports hiatus came on the heels of Hilo’s 2019 DI BIIF and state championship victories — and since then, Konawaena has emerged as a new dominant force, winning DI state and decimating its BIIF competitors last season.
Hilo did well last year, going 6-2 in regular season BIIF play and notching some huge wins against Kealakehe, Waiakea and Kea‘au. However, the Vikings could not get out from under Konawaena’s shadow, going 0-3 against the Wildcats and falling 51-0 to them during the BIIF championship.
Coach Flores said that he believes rekindling the Vikings’ spirits and team culture will be key to success this season and going forward.
“I’m trying to build this team more family-oriented, build a brotherhood” he said. “I feel like the program lost that in the past few years. I’ve started noticing that they’re working more together. I have some good leaders out here.”
The team’s young age has made it easier to change the status-quo, and has brought new life into the culture.
“Everyone’s eager to play,” Zaeah Flores said. “We have a lot of drive that’ll push us through the year.”
The Vikings will put themselves straight to the test in next week’s matchup against the Wildcats. The time off paid off, as Hilo will enter the outing with two weeks worth of fresh film on Konawaena.
“(The Wildcats) are really, really good,” Flores said. “They’re a well-disciplined team, so you gotta be prepared for that in all three phases. We gotta limit mistakes, be smart.”
We definitely wanted that game, especially against a team of that magnitude, to play against a team that’s very well-coached like Lahaina,” Trevino said, “to have an early-season test because a lot of these young guys need it. That situation would have been a great opportunity to coach and put them through some adversity.
“The first game coming against the Division I state champion isn’t an easy task at all. It’s unfortunate that we missed that opportunity, but we look at it now as having a prep week.”