By Reagan Paz

[email protected]

The Trojan Varsity football team underwent a bumpy season with many wins, losses and incredibly close games. The team hitched a ride to playoffs, but fell short in their second game against Farrington and ended with a 4-6-0 overall ratio. Although the season was rough for them, it was seen as an opportunity to improve for future seasons.

“You have to fail in order to succeed. There was some failure this year, but … (players) have to understand … what it feels like to lose and we want to take that and make sure that we … turn (the losses) into more wins,” said Head Coach Roderick York.

The outcomes of the games weren’t based strictly off of physical ability; mindset also played a big role. “If we had a better mentality when we were down, I think we probably could have done better … we weren’t focused on this game … I think that’s what basically beat us. And when we were down, we kind of just gave up,” expressed wide receiver Sophomore Ryan Reedy.

This season, there were a lot of times where the team fell short within the last minute of the game. “We played the number one and the number three teams in the state, and we were leading on them until (there was) one minute left in the quarter. Unfortunately, we didn’t win when the clock (hit zero),” York explained. In the game against Leilehua, the team tied the scores 33-33, and with less than a minute left in the game, Leilehua scored a touchdown for a win of 40-33. Similar results came in their last playoff game against Farrington, where they were up 20-18 and with just seven seconds left in the game Farrington scored, ending the game with 25-20.

Despite the team’s flaws, there were things that worked well with them this year. “Momentum’s a huge (positive factor). We just do one good play, and another good play after that and it just turns out to be this really good drive and we start to score and the fans get crazy and we feel it,” said Reedy. “The preparation for games (also worked well). There wasn’t a game that we weren’t prepared for … we can’t say that we entered any games not prepared … (But sometimes,) things happen in the game that doesn’t go your way all the time,” York added.

Since the team started to do well more towards the ending of this season, York hopes to start off stronger in the beginning of next year and then improve from there.