Excitement mounts at Kamehameha Maui

PUKALANI -- Tiliti Adams and Tristan Catan have grown up with the Kamehameha Schools Maui football program under head coach Ulima Afoa.

They will all depend on each other as their 2018 season gets underway this week when the Warriors host the American Leadership Academy of Arizona for a preseason game on Friday night at Kanaiaupuni Stadium.

Adams will line up at quarterback to go along with his duties at defensive back, where he was a first-team Maui Interscholastic League All-Star last season as a sophomore.

"He's a good enough athlete to where mentally he has transitioned to understand the offense," Afoa said outside the KSM weight room on Friday. "He has the same role he has in basketball -- he's a distributor of the ball. It's like in basketball, I tell him: 'You need to shoot more or people won't guard you.' So, it's not that hard of a transition for him."

Afoa, a former offensive lineman at San Diego State, knows Adams can only be as good as those around him.

"A quarterback can only do so much," Afoa said. "It still comes down to the wide receiver making that catch, it comes down to guys blocking."

Adams, a 5-foot-8, 155-pound junior, is ready to step in for first-team MIL All-Star Kainoa Sanchez, who led an offense that threw for 71.4 percent of its offense last season when it averaged 344.6 yards per game.

"At first, I was really nervous, I had to start really early for this," Adams said. "But right now, I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm actually liking the position of quarterback. I'm looking to play both ways. It's really hard, but I think being a corner will help me as a quarterback. It helps me understand defenses better."

Catan will line up at slotback, wide receiver, running back and perhaps as a wildcat quarterback on offense. On defense, he will see time at both safety spots and middle linebacker.

The standout baseball player was a first-team MIL football All-Star last season as a utility pick on defense.

"He's always been a multiple-position player for us," Afoa said. "I think the thing that adds to his value is we can ask him to play running back, any of those positions -- even quarterback if we needed to. He just adjusts -- one thing he's got, he's got football savvy, he's got football smarts."

Catan, a 5-11, 200-pound senior, said, "I'm actually the most excited about this season than I've ever been because we've got new players that people don't know about yet. We've got people coming up from JV who are going to have a big impact and we've got a new QB and he's been looking good."

It is likely that Adams and Catan see action both ways, but that is not something Afoa wants to count on with a varsity roster of 38.

"We only have 38 guys, so they all need to come and be able to play," Afoa said. "We can't just depend on 11 to 22 guys. We need all 38."

The Warriors went 4-5 overall last season after a 2-7 mark in Afoa's first season at the helm in 2016.

"I think part of it is just getting them to come out and work out during the summer," Afoa said. "We had a pretty good core group, but there's others that wait until the season starts, which is why we're going to start playing only one game -- and that's the week before we start playing league."

Afoa said that KSM will enlarge enrollment soon, which could help the athletic numbers. He added that more than 40 players routinely showed up for summer workouts out of the 73 total turnout of the varsity and junior varsity teams.

"Right now, we're probably down 100 students that could be on this campus," he said. "If you count half of those as athletes, that could still could add to your numbers."

Afoa is the athletic counselor at Kamehameha Maui and has a coaching resume that includes stops at the University of Hawaii and SDSU.

"We're trying to change the culture here a little bit as far as working out and doing the things that you need to do in order to be competitive," Afoa said. "We're trying to get that college mindset and we're also trying to limit kids who play just one sport. We want them to play more than one sport to develop. Some of my best athletes have always been three- or four-sport athletes."

Afoa said the offense will be "wide open" -- the Warriors averaged 344.6 yards per game last season behind the arm of Sanchez, who led the league with a 60 percent completion rate, 21 touchdown passes and 1,723 yards in the air. The first year of the Afoa regime, they rushed for 60.2 percent of their offense.

On defense, they will run out of a 3-5-3 base alignment "for personnel reasons. It's really a stunt 3-5-3. In other words, we're not just going to sit there. We have to get good at covering gaps and reading keys and that kind of stuff. You can make a lot of things happen by moving people around. Hopefully most of the time, it's good, but sometimes it might not be so good."

*Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com

WARRIORS AT A GLANCE

2017 record--4-5 overall, 3-5 MIL

Offense--multiple

Defense--3-5-3

Returning starters--5 offense, 5 defense

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MIL FOOTBALL

2018 SEASON PREVIEWS

Monday--King Kekaulike

Today--Kamehameha Maui

Wednesday--Baldwin

Thursday--Maui High

Friday--Lahainaluna

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UPCOMING SCHEDULE

Friday's Games

Baldwin vs. Lahainaluna at War Memorial Stadium, 7 p.m.

American Leadership Academy (Ariz.) at Kamehameha Maui, 7 p.m. (nonleague)

Saturday's Game

Maui High at King Kekaulike, 7 p.m.