Practice Continues, Day 5 Wrap-Ups, Santos, Lafu

Day 6 of spring practice continues today. Check the Warrior Beat and UH Sports Extra for updates.

UPDATE: Here's Dave Reardon's Thursday practice blog.

...Reardon reports that Blaze Soares may be out for the rest of spring.

Starting linebacker Blaze Soares said he doesn’t expect to put on the pads again this spring because of concerns with his shoulder injury from last season.

“Probably,” Soares answered at today’s practice when asked if he would be out the remaining 9 spring practices. “No sense make anything worse.”

UPDATE 2: Here's Stephen Tsai's post about today's practice.

UPDATE 3: NelsonO has another one of his excellent practice reports up on Sportshawaii.com. Here's an excerpt:

Wright-Jackson and Libre are the “co-starters” at running back or at least they have gotten most reps at running back so far. Mario Cox appears to be the third guy at this point. Newcomer Jake Heun can really hit; he hits like a guy on defense.

Hansen at center and Kia at left tackle were running with the first team today. A lot of rotating the offensive linemen in and out, but the second group this morning appeared to be Hisatake and Thomas at the tackles, Ginlack and Ieru at the guards, and Lefiti at center.

As a sidenote, I've started posting on the Sportshawaii.com main page (shhhh, don't tell them.) Right now, some of it is similar to what I post here, but I'm trying to mix it up and highlight some great threads, comments, etc on Sportshawaii's forums. Be there!

UPDATE 4: The Advertiser has video highlighting the running game.

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Dave Reardon writes about yesterday's great performance by the defense.

Yes, there were some things the Hawaii offense did well yesterday in its 25-play skirmish against the Warriors defense. But a day after UH's renovated run-and-shoot clicked, it took some licks.

If this had been full-contact, it would've been ugly. The Warrior defenders penetrated the under-construction offensive line for what would've been five sacks.

Michael Tsai profiles quarterback Jake Santos.

Funaki, the designated No. 1 quarterback this spring, said he came to appreciate Santos' contributions when Santos was still on the scout team last year.

"He's very humble, very willing to learn," Funaki said. "A lot of times, you get discouraged when you're on the scout team, but he was always willing to work and give it his best, and that helps the team to grow. He's always pushing us to learn, and that's something I've learned from him — how to be a better student of the game."

Jason Kaneshiro profiles offensive lineman Clarence "Lafu" Tuioti-Mariner.

Tuioti-Mariner displayed that strength in preseason testing when he squatted a team-high 610 pounds.

"There were like six plates on each side ... and when he stood up it just bounced and (the bar) was like an arch over his back," said senior defensive tackle Keala Watson, who spotted for Tuioti-Mariner that day. "I was scared because I didn't think I could even spot him, but he just went down, came right back up and racked it."

"The best part about it," Tuioti-Mariner said, "was after I squatted I turned around and I saw the whole team just cheering. I was pretty stoked about it."

Reardon and Kaneshiro have a Sports Notebook with some quotes from Jake Santos, Jake Heun and Mana Silva, injury reports on Blaze Soares and Malcolm Lane, and a quote from Greg McMackin about this Saturday's scrimmage.

Saturday's first scrimmage will go 30-40 plays at the end of the 7 to 9 a.m. practice, McMackin said. "We'll use it to evaluate new players and hold out guys we know can play," the coach said.