On Sept. 21, the MHS varsity football team went up against Saint John Bosco — a high school team from California ranked no. 2 in high school football in the country — in an exhibition game at the John Kauinana Stadium. Although Mililani lost 10-42, the team was able to gain experience and learn from it as well. 

     “I feel like we gained a lot of knowledge. Like how I said, it was an exposure game and I feel like we gained a lot of wisdom on how they play versus how we play and mainland football versus Hawai’i football,” said defensive line (#73) Senior Jaron Abela-Nakashima. 

     Mililani scored three points in the first quarter. In the fourth quarter, Mililani scored another seven points. “I definitely feel like our offensive line was working hard. They were well protecting and I feel like the defensive was definitely doing well, holding it down. Like you said, they’re the top — they’re the second team in the nation and the fact that our defense was able to hold them down the way they did is pretty good,” said Nakashima. 

     Despite this being Mililani’s first loss of the season, the players were able to take away positives from the loss. One major accomplishment was their defensive effort. “I felt like our defensive executed the plays well, holding down their offence, like, we gave them a hard time to score. Like it took them pretty much all their effort to score and that’s pretty much, well you know, accomplishment right there for our team, personally,” said linebacker (#44) Junior Sonny Semeatu. 

     The team felt that playing against Saint John Bosco challenged them, putting their skills to the test. From their experience, they were able to learn what they needed to work on. “(We need to work on) definitely execution and we just need to get better at executing plays, executing assignments, making sure that everybody is where they need to be at the right time in order to gain yards or stop plays,” said Nakashima. Semeatu added, “Mindset wise, confidence — having more confidence in ourselves ‘cause we could’ve done way better than what we did last week. We just hesitated because of their title.”

     In preparation for their next game, the team plans on watching the film from the game. By watching the film, the players hope to improve by focusing on any offensive or defensive mistakes made. “(The mindset coming out of the game was) to work on the mistakes we made during the game and to come back next week, especially this week against Saint Louis, ready to go and just well prepared,” said Semeatu. 

     The team has been improving and doing things differently compared to last season. One thing the team has been doing is strengthening their bond between each other. “We meet before every game so that we can just be with the team, we can get our mindset right. I feel like there’s a lot better work ethic on this team and we just — we all just know that we need to get stuff done so we just get it done,” said Nakashima. Semeatu added, “Defensive wise, we’re improving a lot. I think we’re way better than last season, this season because of where our defense is set up and the players that we have now, it’s pretty much a big impact for this season but that’s pretty much it.”

     Mililani’s next game is against Saint Louis on Friday, Sept. 27 at the Aloha Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 PM.