WAIPAHU, Oahu — It was a memorable run for Kamehameha-Hawaii despite a lopsided loss that produced a bunch of red eyes and broken hearts.
Maryknoll swung mighty bats and thumped the Warriors 14-0 in a five-inning game for the Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II baseball state championship on Saturday night at Hans L’Orange Field.
Kamehameha’s streak of knocking off seeded teams hit a roadblock against the Spartans (10-3-1), the No. 2 seed and Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion, which scored 10 runs in the third inning.
The Warriors (11-3) also couldn’t figure out Maryknoll starter Chase Uyema, who fired a four-hitter, two days after he went 5 2/3 innings in a 7-6 win over Konawaena in the first round. The 5-foot-7 junior right-hander kept throwing curveballs on the outside corner and finished with three strikeouts and one harmless walk.
Kamehameha starter Alika Young threw goose eggs over the first two innings. Then the third turned into a nightmare. There were 10 hits in the inning, and at one point nine consecutive batters reached base against Young and reliever Jordan Hirae, who went 1 1/3 innings.
Chad Teshima threw a scoreless inning in his final duty as a Warrior senior. It was perhaps fitting that all three seniors accounted for Kamehameha’s hits. Teshima was 1-for-1, Kupono Decker went 1-for-2 and Bronson Pulgados batted 2-for-2.
“Losing this game, we learned that no matter what we have to stay together, and pick each other up,” Young said. “We lose three important seniors, but we’ve got a lot of juniors who will come back as seniors, and we’ll put up a fight next year.
“I’ve enjoyed the tournament and the bonding with the team. No matter what, we stuck together and had a great time.”
Division I state tournaments are considered best of the best competitions. And Division II state tourneys are regarded as being on a lower tier because they’re intended to be among small schools.
But that’s not necessarily always the case, especially when it comes to the Oahu Interscholastic Association, which uses won-loss records, not school enrollment size, to designate its teams.
The Big Island Interscholastic Federation champion Warriors had a really tough road to the state championship. They were unseeded and faced No. 4 Kapaa and No. 1 Waianae, taking down ace pitchers in each game. Then No. 2 Maryknoll was waiting with a full bullpen and a rubber-armed Uyema.
“No one wanted to face Kapaa. That’s two good pitchers that we beat (Nick Tabura and Turtle Kuhaulua),” Kamehameha coach Andy Correa said. “Waianae is a Division I team. They’ve got really good players over there. We faced the best pitching team in the first day and the best hitting team in the second day.
“It’s not that we ran out of pitching. All year we followed the same formula: throw strikes and play defense. Dealing with a 10-run inning, the kids had a lot of fight. They never gave up. We threw strikes, but nothing worked. We pitched to contact and we didn’t make plays, something that hasn’t happened all year, or they got base hits.”
Maryknoll 00(10) 04 — 14 13 0
KS-Hawaii 000 00 — 0 4 3
c Kapaa 3, Konawaena 2: Turtle Kuhaulua allowed one run over five innings to lead the Warriors past the Wildcats in the Division II tournament fifth-place game.
The contest ended after six innings because of time constraints.
Nick Tabura went 2-for-2 with an RBI for Kaui Interscholastic Federation champion Kapaa (10-5), which took a 2-0 lead in the second inning.
Jordan Miyahira-Young went the distance for BIIF runner-up Konawaena, which finished its season 13-5.
At the plate, Ona Manzano and Royce Torres-Torioka each had a triple.
Konawaena 000 101 — 2 3 3
Kapaa 020 001 — 3 7 2
