HILO – For a team that didn’t think they had a shot at the postseason a week ago, Keaau’s softball team sure looked like title contenders Friday.
Ranchell Berinobis hit for the cycle to get the Cougars off to a fine start in Game 1 and Lohi Kamakea-Wong delivered a pair of complete games at Walter Victor Stadium as Keaau dethroned Hilo to reach the Big Island Interscholastic Federation Division I championship series.
“We have been waiting for this moment,” Keaau coach Peter Ngirngotel said after 17-4 and 6-1 victories. “We told the girls to be fearless. Their timing is great. This is their best games of the season.”
Ngirngotel tinkered with other pitchers during the regular season, but he couldn’t imagine Kamakea-Wong, a four-year starter in the circle, being anywhere but front and center as the Cougars reached the HHSAA tournament for the second time in three seasons.
They did it by sweeping their playoff nemesis. The Vikings, whose season is done at 7-5, had eliminated Keaau in the past three postseasons, including the finals in 2012 and 2013.
“We had a lot of errors during the season, but we came together as one and it showed up,” said Berinobis, a first-year Cougar who transferred from Pahoa.
In the opener, she homered during a five-run first inning and hit a bases-clearing triple in the second.
Staked to a big lead in the opener, Kamakea-Wong struck out six and allowed four hits in a five-inning TKO. In Game 2, she struck out five and allowed only three hits.
“This was the culmination,” Ngirngotel said. “We know what she can do.”
Keaau will try for its first BIIF title against Waiakea in a best-of-three championship series that starts Friday at Old Kona Airport Park.
Ngirngotel said many of his players didn’t even know they would have the opportunity to advance after regular-season losses at home to Hilo and Waiakea.
“They thought they were out until I told them the BIIF was up in the air,” Ngirngotel said. “They said, ‘Man, we can do this.’
“I told them the first game was going to set the tone for the second game.”
Leadoff hitter Rylann Hacoba reached base five time and scored four runs, Erleen Oguma contributed a double and a single, and Kamakea-Wong and Marissa Calhoun each had two hits.
In the second game, Hacoba and Kanoe Maka each doubled and scored in the second inning, and Oguma’s double and Macey Mokuhalii’s single paced a three-run third inning.
“Some had their doubts, but we pulled through,” Berinobis said.