At 7:20 am, on Wednesday, Sept. 4, Mountlake Terrace High School kicked off the school year.
At 5 p.m. onFriday, Sept. 6 the Mountlake Terrace Hawks football team will do the same at Edmonds Stadium against the Stanwood Spartans.
“We’re really excited to play them,” said head coach Tony Umayam. “They’ve got a new coach who’s been coaching in college the past few years so it should be interesting.”
Last year, the Hawks fell to Stanwood in their opening game before closing out the season 5-4 and making playoffs for the second time in four years. The team, which returns five starters on both offense and defense, aims to make it three out of five this season.
“Obviously it will be tough to replace Mason (Stone) and Devante (Downs),” mentioned Umayam of the University of Idaho and University of California-Berkeley recruits. But he added, “We fully expect to be in the playoff hunt the entire season.”
Stone was an All-Wesco defensive back last year and is currently “gray shirting” for the Idaho Vandals. All-Wesco linebacker/tailback Devante Downs tore his ACL in late June and is out for the year but will continue his football career for the Cal Bears in 2014.
The Hawks will continue to play their traditional smash mouth football with the Winged-T offense that will be led by third team All-Wesco tailback Chance Ragsdale (senior) and first year quarterback Justin Hopkins (junior).
On the defensive side the team will be led by All-Wesco lineman Jevin Pahinui (senior) and second team All-Wesco linebacker Brett Potter (senior).
One player that has really stood out to Coach Umayam has been Eni Klosi. “He really put in the off-season work to play on both sides and special teams,” Umayam said proudly. “To go from not playing that much one year to being a captain and playing on offense and defense is just awesome.”
Hopefully Eni will be the first of many great stories this year for the team.
Watch the Hawks take on Stanwood tomorrow night on the Sound Live Sports Network at 5 PM!
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