Garden Island: Give us the skinny. What do you have to do to win this evening? Kobayashi: We need to keep the ball away from Castle’s offense. They are explosive. If we can play good defense, and make no mistakes-maybe
Garden Island: Give us the skinny. What do you have to do to win this evening?
Kobayashi: We need to keep the ball away from Castle’s offense. They are explosive. If we can play good defense, and make no mistakes-maybe force some errors-we can control the football. If we give our offense enough playing time, we will have a good chance of winning this game.
Garden Island: How do you deal with a quarterback like Castle’s Joel Botehlo? He can run, he can throw-is Waimea prepared for him?
Kobayashi: It’s hard to prepare for an athlete of his caliber. He is very capable. He can hurt you in both ways: on the ground and in the air. We won’t just blitz him every time, we are going to have to mix it up. Keep him guessing.
Garden Island: The Knights’ linemen are big in terms of size. Will this effect your ability to either get at Botehlo or protect Adrian Agan?
Kobayashi: The linemen are big, but they aren’t the only guys on that team that outweigh our guys. The Knights are collectively a lean and mean kind of team. A lot of their players are 6-2, 240-and they are cut. We are really going to have to play our toughest football of the year. We need to overcome size with grit and intensity. We need to play a hard-nosed kind of game. And our guys are capable of that.
Garden Island: Execution has been Waimea’s bread-and-butter. You guys play mistake-free football, and you do it for four quarters. Will this aspect of your game become the key to winning tonight?
Kobayashi: Well, we work on repetition and perfection. Understanding the plays and running them over and over again is the key to playing solid football. We are prepared for four quarters. Our guys never quit-it doesn’t matter if we are down or winning.
Garden Island: Castle’s coaches told reporters that they are not looking past Waimea. They say you guys can’t be overlooked, especially after the 10 straight KIF Titles you have achieved and the amount of dedication the Menehunes put towards the football program. Do you believe him, or do you think Castle feels this game is just a bump in the HHSAA tournament road?
Kobayashi: I know they have an great coaching staff over at Castle, they aren’t going to overlook anything. Coach Maeda will not run a football progam that way. His team has had some emotional come-from-behind victories and he knows that anything is possible in the frame of four quarters. He isn’t overlooking us. He knows we are going to play tough football.
