Leading from behind can be ill-advised and leading with your face can be even worse.
Unless, of course, you’re Kamehameha senior goalkeeper Jameson Sato, one of the folk heroes during what coach Kevin Waltjen called a “fairy-tale” season.
And now that story is officially complete.
The final chapter in the Warriors’ first state championship season reads like this: Sato is the the BIIF Division II Player of the Year, as decided by the league’s coaches, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today.
“Wow, I’m honestly really surprised,” Sato said.
If he had his way, he’d cut this honor into 10 other pieces – maybe more – and share it with his teammates.
“I would have chosen one of my teammates because there are so many talented players on our team,” he said. “I am nothing without my 10 teammates on the field.”
He can’t say it enough.
“This honor belongs to them,” Sato said.
He credits parents David and Natasha Sato and his Christian upbringing for blessing him with his humility, but refinement as a goalkeeper took a little more work. For aiding his development, credits all of his coaches along the way, Skee Saplan and Keoki Brown, in particular.
Honokaa coach Maurice Miranda hailed Sato as the best player in Division II in 2017-18, but he remembered Sato a little differently when he attended a goalkeeping clinic in Honokaa a few years back.
“He was green at the time, but I saw him grow and mature,” Miranda said. “He led (the Warriors) from goalkeeper and he dominated.
“He was their first attacker, constantly shouting instructions, and he just shined as a sweeper/keeper. He finished that team.”
Waltjen, in his first year as the lead man, said having Sato at keeper essentially gave Kamehameha a player/coach on the field.
“He sacrificed himself for the team and threw his face in there,” said Waltjen, speaking literally.
No play better defines Sato’s season or playing style than one that occurred during the latter stages of the HHSAA Division II championship against Kapaa on Oahu
Sato spent much of the match charging out of the penalty box to cut down attackers, and on what would be his final play he dove out to stop a rush and took a foot to the face, watching the final minute of the match with a bloody nose on the sideline.
“I’d do anything for my boys,” Sato, his nose burning, told the Tribune-Herald after the mid-February match.
The glory remains, but the battle scar is gone.
“My face is all good now,” Sato said.
During a 14-game winning streak to end the season, Kamehameha allowed just seven goals, and Sato had a hand in eight shutouts, including a 6-0 win against Honokaa in the BIIF final, giving the Warriors their second league title.
Sato saw spot duty in the his freshman season as Sean Miday stood tall in goal for the Warriors. This past season, Miday was one of Sato’s coaches.
“Everything has came full circle,” Sato said. “It was kind of a fairy-tale season.”
As can be expected of a team that shrugged of a season-opening loss at Hawaii Prep, the eventual co-D-I state champion, and never lost again, Kamehameha dominated the all-BIIF selections.
Sato was joined by the other members of Waltjen’s senior core six: fullbacks Justin Kenoi and Kea Kekuawela and midfielder Tyler Waltjen started as freshman in 2015 as Kamehameha won its first BIIF title; forward Rylan Respicio, who scored the only goal in the Warriors’ state final loss to Mid-Pacific that year, midfielder David Erskine and Sato took on full-time roles as sophomores, as did fullback Israel Bowden.
Also making the first team from Kamehameha were leading goal-scorer Jonathan DeMotta, a junior forward, senior midfielder Nainoa Kalaola-Maruquin and sophomore forward Buddy Betts.
“They made my job a lot easier,” Kevin Waltjen said.
And lest you think his job was too easy, that he had the state title handed to him on a silver platter considering all the talent and experience he inherited, Sato said think again.
“He had never coached a high school team before, and not every coach can come in and take on a bunch of crazy kids,” Sato said. “He came in organized. He was ready with a plan, and that helped us.
“He’s very encouraging.”