Kapaa High School’s boys soccer team will head out to Oahu on Thursday morning for the Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II boys soccer state tournament as defending champions. Warriors head coach Gary Hudson said with six players returning
Kapaa High School’s boys soccer team will head out to Oahu on Thursday morning for the Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II boys soccer state tournament as defending champions.
Warriors head coach Gary Hudson said with six players returning from last year’s title run, he likes his team’s chances to repeat.
“They’ve been there … They know that you got to play your best game, and then some,” he said. “If these boys can play to what they’re capable of playing, we have a really good shot at it.”
Hudson said he has kept practices simple as the team looks forward to making another run at a championship.
“In the beginning of the year, we’ve been working on the possession game. We want to switch the point of attack and we want our defense to stay organized,” he said. “We’ve been keeping it to that.”
Senior left back Gavin Bryan is one of the returning members of last year’s team and hopes his experience can help his team win another title.
“The teams on Oahu aren’t like the teams here. They play faster. They have more knowledge of the game,” he said. “So we have to play our best and play soccer like we know we can.”
Bryan said Hudson has especially emphasized conditioning during the last few practices.
He added conditioning wasn’t as emphasized this year because the team instead focused on game skills and knowledge to develop the younger players.
“We been trying to raise that up because we haven’t been doing it that much this year,” he said. “Last year, we did a lot of that and we went into the tournament strong. We were able to outrun everybody. Our conditioning was top of the line.”
Junior goalkeeper Austyne Carvalho-Toloai also said conditioning was essential during last year’s title run.
“We went into double overtime in the first game against (Hawaii Prep Academy). We still could run our fastest and keep the pace up,” he said.
Though conditioning wasn’t as much of a priority this year, Carvalho-Toloai said he’s not too worried about it.
“I feel our conditioning is really good. We don’t get tired in the games,” he said.
Though the school is defending state champs, this will be Hudson’s first trip to the state tournament as head coach.
Though it is Hudson’s first year as Kapaa’s head coach, he said returning assistant coaches and players from last year have kept the core of the team intact.
“Its a lot of familiar faces for the kids still,” he said.
