High school football Week 4 lookback: What we learned Saturday
Published: September 21, 2008
-- All things must pass, including record regular-season winning streaks. It took a 1,000-mile journey to Okinawa and a comeback from a 14-0 deficit in the first three minutes to do it, but Yokota met its match in the right arm of Kaleb Robinson, a 12-tackle performance by Don Hampton and the Kubasaki Dragons, 18-14 at Mike Petty. 51-game regular-season winning streak is now history.
-- Robinson is nothing if not resilient. Playing with a separated left (non-throwing) shoulder, Robinson atoned for his four-interception game Sept. 5 at Kadena by going 6-for-9 for 152 yards, including the game-winning 20-yard TD strike to Andrew Candelaria with just over three minutes left.
-- Dionte Waite, 2 catches for 93 yards, each of which set up a Kubasaki touchdown. Word will spread like wildfire throughout the Pacific = cover No. 16 in green like a blanket.
-- There was a reason the Dragons as one chanted "Moun-tain-top! Moun-tain-top!" as coach Fred Bales came over to give the postgame talk to his team. Bales has stated that his team's goal this season is to get back on the mountain, learn how to climb it, learn to win again, as it did in taking the 2005 Class AA title. "Tonight was a step in that direction," he said.
-- The last two times somebody rung up a regular-season loss on Yokota? Panthers simply ran the table the rest of the way, the last game being a Rising Sun Bowl victory in 2000 and 2002. Derick "Rookie" Seward (526 yards, 8 TDs, 53 carries) and the Panthers are still a dangerous team.
-- Should Yokota win its 10th straight DODDS-Japan title and winthe Class AA semifinal -- at home -- against Seoul American, the Panthers would host the Class AA title game on Nov. 8. In the three years of DODDS-Pacific football playoffs, the home team has won the Class AA title every year.
-- A tip of the cap to the heartbroken. Robert D. Edgren's last three home losses have each come by one point, the latest Saturday's 14-13 defeat against the American School In Japan.
--Friday's Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools tilt pitting Yokota at ASIJ will be anything but a walkover. The Mustangs are for real and would love nothing more than to halt the Panthers' nine-year Kanto Plain title run.
-- Back to Earth the Guam High Panthers have plummeted the past two weeks. After opening strong with a victory over Southern on Sept. 6, Simon Sanchez and 2003-06 Interscholastic Football League champion George Washington have pummeled the Panthers by a combined 76-6 the past two weeks. First-place Father Duenas is next, on Friday at Big Navy.
-- Speaking of Guam, longest winning streak in the Pacific now belongs to defending IFL champion Father Duenas Memorial, with seven.
