The startling turnaround for the King Kekaulike High School football team in 2022 — from a 5-61 combined record over the previous decade to 5-7 and a Division II state championship game appearance last year — has Na Alii players, coaches and faithful excited for 2023.

The team returns 2022 Maui Interscholastic League Offensive Player of the Year Kalelepono Wong at quarterback and four starters on the offensive line that paved the way for more than 280 yards of offense per game last season, 87 percent of which came on the ground in the run-heavy wing T offense.

Wong has looked smooth at practice as Na Alii prepare for a pair of preseason games — Honokaa visits on Aug. 12 and King Kekaulike will travel to face a state championship game rematch at Waimea on Aug. 19.

“He’s one of those quiet leaders, he doesn’t really get too vocal,” King Kekaulike head coach Tyson Valle said of his rising senior quarterback who was second in MIL rushing yards and first with 11 touchdowns last season on the ground. “But when he has to speak everybody listens. You know, he won’t make anybody do what he wouldn’t do. So, I think a lot of the guys respect that. He looks a lot more mature than he did last year.

“He looks like he has some goals that he wants to accomplish this season and the team is getting behind him and supporting him.”

King Kekaulike Stadium crowds grew exponentially over the 2022 season to a bursting-at-the-seams, standing-room-only house for Na Alii’s 20-0 win over Nanakuli in the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Division II state semifinals in November.

They came back to Earth after a 45-6 loss to Waimea in the state title tilt on Oahu a week later, but the glow of last fall is definitely still in the air.

The school’s on-campus stadium felt more crowded for soccer matches last winter — both Na Alii boys and girls soccer programs are highly successful in the MIL — and often the nucleus of the football team sat together at those games to cheer as one.

This season more than 100 players are out for the varsity and junior varsity teams combined, a rare number for any MIL team, much less for a school with an enrollment of less than 1,200.

“We haven’t seen that, especially during the summer,” Valle said. “We’ve been having about 65 to 70 kids out during the summer, which was fantastic, but we couldn’t even imagine how many kids would be here this year. It’s not something that we really thought about.”

When asked if the numbers are directly linked to last season’s success, Valle said that is one factor, but the program’s roots are growing as well.

“I’m sure it is,” he said of the success factor contributing to the numbers. “I think, too, with COVID being out of the way and the kids finally starting to get back into sports, again, that’s helping. We did have our Big Boys come up this past year, so we got a lot of kids from there as well. I think with everything coming back to normal we’re starting to see numbers being contributed to at the high school level.”

The offseason program has been up and running for more than a year now as well.

“Well, last year bringing back that offseason program, the weight training program, and having kids buy in early definitely helped us out,” Valle said. “Instead of picking up a few kids once school started, it’s helping us throughout the year. So, yeah, definitely gotta give it up to the offseason program. That’s something that we didn’t have going before, but more kids are buying into it this year.”

Valle added that the 2023 offseason program included some renewed pep in the steps of the dozens of players taking part.

“It has been probably about 10 times better than what we’ve seen in all the time I’ve been up there,” Valle said. “We’ve got new problems — now I’m trying to get everybody into the weight room. We’ve been working on that part, running out of equipment, jerseys, things like that.

“So, we’re really trying to plan and coordinate the numbers that we have because you can get so many kids out, but when you start running out of equipment it might become a problem.”

Wong drew high praise from Valle, who compared his QB to former standout Trey Hunter, a 2020 King Kekaulike graduate who set the state single-game record with 342 yards receiving in a game against Maui High.

“He looks fantastic, I mean I would even say I would even compare him with Trey, maybe even better,” Valle said.

Valle took over the King Kekaulike program in 2018 and while it was slowed down by COVID, it has just about reached the point he had in mind when he became co-head coach with Dennis Dias, who has stepped back into a support role.

“I think we’re still building, it’s definitely getting close, but I don’t think we’re close enough yet,” Valle said. “I think there’s still some things that we need to solidify as a team, as a program. Definitely the numbers are pushing to where we want to be, but I think as far as the staff and the whole program there’s some things that I would like to see a little bit more with everything.

“But our coaching staff and players, they’ve been working hard during the summer, we had a great campout this weekend, with all those guys there, trying to get some team bonding going on, trying to solidify this team, but for the most part I think we’re on track.”

King Kekaulike will host a three-way controlled scrimmage with Maui High and Lahainaluna on Saturday, a step that will show what needs to be worked on in the final week before playing a game.

Kalani Puu, who was fifth in MIL rushing last season, and Kamakalei Stone will step in to the void that was created by the graduations of Tysin Zackious and Oakley Dillon. Pa’a Lewis-Mattos came up from the JV team to grab some carries at the end of last season and will be counted on this season.

Valle said of Lewis-Mattos: “He’s not the biggest guy, but he runs big.”

Jordan Yoro, a Baldwin transfer, will also be part of the wing T game plan.

The offense will start up front where Kimo Kekumu-Moniz is back at center, River Morris will be at the left tackle spot, Tiegan Nakamoto will be at left guard, Aaliikumakani Valle, the coach’s son, is at right guard, and Peni Lafaele is at right tackle.

“I tell you what, man, this offensive line is a lot stronger and a lot faster,” Valle said. “I think what we’ve seen this year is we have a lot of subs, some guys that can give these guys a break. The whole summer we just focused on getting our second- and third-string guys up to where the first-string guys are at.

“We’re getting it pretty tight, we’re running it pretty close, so we’re excited to see what happens this weekend.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.