Rodney Yap of Hisportsfolio.com invited me to take
photographs of the participants of his Maui Football Combine that was held on
the Lahainaluna campus. This was the second year at the campus and I believe
the fourth year overall for this Combine. Rodney does a great job of putting
these things together – all with the purpose of helping Maui’s athletes achieve
their dreams of going to college and playing sports at the collegiate level.
I understood other photographers were going to be at this
event, including Ben Juan and Randy Jay Braun. Ben, I know, shoots a lot for
Baldwin and Baldwin had a lot of athletes participating in the combine. Unfortunately
I did not see Ben there. Randy is a very accomplished and successful
professional photographer. It was intimidating just knowing he was going to be
there. But his son, Jay Braun, is a beast of an athlete and just coming off his
sophomore year at Seabury Hall. I understand he is transferring to King
Kekaulike and maybe playing football for them. He is a beast – he sprints at a
high level and is as strong as an ox. He
runs a 4.6 forty, long jumps greater than 20 feet and bench presses 225 pounds
14 times. Wendy Osher of Mauinow.com was there with a video camera. Rodney had
his older son Riley taking pictures as well. The Maui News also had a
representative there but I think he was an intern.
With all these photographers around, I had no problem
concentrating on Lahainaluna players only. After all, I am the Lahainaluna
Sports Shooter, right? The only problem was, there was no way to differentiate
the players (unless I knew them). The participants were given different shirt
colors, depending on their grade (Junior, Sophomore, Freshman). I had to look
up the pool assignments and try to get down their numbers.
Tactically, there were different testing stations on the
field and back at the locker rooms. The
field events were: 3-Cone Drill, Pro Agility Drill and 40 yard dash. The locker
room events were: Bench Press, Grip Test, Vertical Jump. Bench press and Grip Test
did not really make for exciting action shots. Plus, I wanted to take action
shots on the beautiful green field. So I decided to concentrate on the field
events and catch the different players as they made their rotations.
Lahainaluna’s Tytus Lucas broke the MFC record in the Pro
Agility drill with a time of 6.79, edging out Baldwin’s Keelan Ewaliko (6.81)
and Lahainaluna’s Semisi Filikitonga (6.82). The previous record was 7.00.
Lahainaluna’s Kiko Fonohema broke the MFC record in the
Vertical Jump with a leap of 36.5 inches. The previous record was 34.5 inches
(Loupua Hafoka, Lahainaluna 2010). Kiko also was the top bench-presser at 185
pounds, with 19 reps – well short of the record of 26 reps at 185 pounds. Jay
Braun was tops with 14 reps at 225 pounds – two reps short of the MFC record.
Several Lahainaluna athletes posted sub-4.8 times in the
40 yard dash:
4.570 Semisi Filikitonga
4.630 Mark
Alamon
4.640 Kiko Fonohema
4.700 Kaimana Ancog
4.720 Tytus Lucas
For the link to Hisportsfolio.com, click here.
For more photos, click here.
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