Mililani quarterback McKenzie Milton gets set to make a pass attempt against Kapolei. The Trojans' offense has been firing on all cylinders this year, to the tune of 63 points and more than 500 yards per contest. Jim Lebeau | Special to SL

Purchase image 1 of 1

The Mililani football team is living by its motto of "humble and hungry."

Dating back to the start of the 2014 season — which culminated with the first state championship in school history — the Trojans have won 16 consecutive games.

Little has changed this season as Mililani has held firmly atop the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Division I Power Rankings all year. It has won each of its first three games by at least 28 points with a staggering average margin of victory of 44.3 points per game.

The Trojans' high-speed, no-huddle offense is yielding 63 points and more than 500 yards per game. Quarterback McKenzie Milton, the reigning All-Hawaii Offensive Player of the Year, has already thrown for 859 yards (286.3 per game) with 12 touchdowns against just one interception. Perhaps most impressive is Milton's completion percentage of 74.4 percent (58 of 78).

Still, despite all the gaudy statistics, there is much room for improvement according to sixth-year head coach Rod York.

"When the quarterbacks are holding the ball for ten seconds and running around that means we had a breakdown somewhere," York said following his team's 67-21 clobbering of Kapolei at John Kauinana Stadium Saturday night. "It shows that we have a lot to improve on execution-wise and not just on offense, but both sides of the ball and special teams as well."

York was critical of Milton, who was selected Preseason Offensive Player of the Year back in July, for some of his decision-making Saturday despite completing 33 of his 45 pass attempts for a career-high 513 yards and six touchdowns.

Milton, a 6-foot, 180-pound speedster who has improved his arm strength and passing accuracy over his two-plus years as the starter, ran circles around the Kapolei defense and zipped several passes downfield at the mere flick of his wrist.

"Yeah, but that's not our offense and he knows it," York said. "The first read is open, go to the first read. He didn't go to the first read and I don't know why. I mean, it looks great for the crowd, but it isn't great for us, because we go one, two, three, four and for some reason we bypassed one for a lot of the times. In the second half, he hit one and he also called the plays in the second half."

To Milton's credit, he owned up to his miscues after the game.

"I take responsibility on the first half," Milton said. "I wasn't really sticking to our offense. I mean, we were calling hitches and I was coming off it pretty fast, so I wasn't really sticking to it and then when o-line had trouble getting to the second level on traps, so we started running zones and it worked better in that second half."

York has consistently preached "executing" and "doing your job" to his players over the years and continues to beat the same drum in 2015. It is a stance that the group has embraced and wholeheartedly believes in.

"I feel that we have a lot of things that we need to work on, but it's nothing that we can't fix," senior wide receiver Kalakaua Timoteo said. "It's simple stuff like getting on the ball faster, running out of bounds when you have to, knowing the down and distance."

Timoteo, who along with Milton is verbally committed to the University of Hawaii, is perhaps the best at his position in the state. As a junior he caught 56 passes for 1,025 yards and 11 touchdowns, including a four-touchdown performance in the state title game.

Furthermore, running Vavae Malepeai, who also earned First Team All-Hawaii honors in 2014, is a verbal commit to the University of Oregon.

Neither Milton, Timoteo nor Malepeai will take opposing defenses by surprise this year, to be sure, but stopping the trio that produces seemingly endless amount of highlight-reel plays is a different story.

"They have the best talent in the state, period," Kapolei coach Darren Hernandez said of the Trojans. "You can slow them down for a while, but I mean, it's pick your poison. They are the most talented team in the state and you can game plan all you want for them, but they just have so much weapons and they hurt you with so many weapons that it's tough to keep up."

A byproduct of the one-sided scores this year has been Mililani's ability to develop depth at numerous positions. The second- and third-string players exclusively played in a scrimmage against American Samoa team Fagaitua several weeks ago. Those same reserves have seen lots of game time as well in regular-season wins over McKinley (73-14), Campbell (49-21) and most recently, Kapolei (67-21).

"We pride ourselves on depth, too," York said. "We hold 93 guys on the roster and we expect everyone to be strong, do their job and I'm proud of the whole team because the next guy stepped in and it showed that the core of the team is what stands tall, not any individual. No one is bigger than the team."

The Trojans have shown maturity by passing along credit to their teammates and coaches, yet holding them accountable at the same time.

"They're responsible for pretty much everything," Timoteo said when asked about the offensive line. "For not only putting them on the pedestal, but when things go wrong and we don't have enough time it all falls on them, so without them we honestly aren't going anywhere."

Timoteo himself was on the receiving end of some discipline when he was late to a team meeting leading up to Saturday's game. He sat out the first quarter, but finished with 10 catches for 193 yards and two touchdowns.

"It was my fault and it was selfish decisions that made me sit out the first quarter and nobody can make up for that but me, so part of me wanted to do that, but the other part of me just wanted to be there and do whatever I could do for the team, whether it was blocking or catching the ball," Timoteo said. "Either way I just wanted to contribute and make an impact."

Mililani's next test will come nearly 2,700 miles away from home when it pays a visit to Liberty (Henderson, Nev.) for a non-league game Friday night.

Henderson is just south of Las Vegas, but the Trojans aren't approaching their first out-of-state game in program history as a vacation.

"It's a business trip and I know that's cliche to say, but it is," Milton said. "We're going to have a good time as a team and it's going to be a bonding experience for us, but we know the task at hand. We know that Liberty is going to be a tough team so we look forward to it."