At 5 feet 4, Waiakea junior Trayden Tamiya may look undersized on the baseball diamond, but he always finds a way to stick out with a skill-set sharpened by an all-consuming work ethic.
Last season, he batted .389 with a .560 on-base percentage and landed on the All-BIIF Division I first team at second base, where ground balls turned into automatic outs and quick innings.
The Warriors captured the BIIF championship last season in the fifth straight year of the Great Title-Sharing tradition. Crosstown rivals Waiakea and Hilo have alternated winning the league since 2012 when the Warriors also pocketed the HHSAA state crown.
More than ever, the BIIF Division I title will be a prized possession because of mandatory pitch count rules by the National Federation of State High School Associations, supported by Major League Baseball and USA Baseball.
The HHSAA Division I tournament is a 12-team field and runs over four days. The BIIF champion usually gets a first-round bye. The last time the BIIF champ didn’t receive a first-round bye was in 1996 when Hilo was unseeded.
Waiakea opens its BIIF season at Keaau at 3 p.m. on Tuesday. Other games are Honokaa at Kamehameha, and Pahoa at Kohala.
The Warriors have veteran starting pitchers in senior right-hander Makoa Andres and junior left-handers David Nakamura and Reese Mondina and young bullpen arms in sophomores Khaden Victorino, Cody Hirata, and Rysen Ross. Senior right-hander Jamieson Hirayama is another reliever.
Besides Tamiya, who will switch to shortstop, the other returning starters are senior outfielders Gehrig Octavio and Nate Minami, and two-way threats Nakamura in the outfield and Andres at third base.
Curren Inouye and Anthony Benevides, who was the designated hitter last year, will split time at first base. Inouye was the backup catcher last season.
Casey Yamauchi and Devin Midel are leading contenders for the second base job. Andres, Yamauchi, and catcher Jacob Igawa will see time at third.
Andres is the only strikeout pitcher on staff, so it’s always a nice security blanket when there’s a shortstop who can gobble up ground balls and get outs.
“Trayden is one of the best infielders on the island,” Waiakea coach Rory Inouye said. “He’s worked hard on strengthening his arm to play shortstop, and he’s good with the bat.
“He’s a quiet kid, but he’s always thinking about how to get an out or advance a runner. His mind is always going. He’s always thinking about the game and the team.”
Familiar name
As the son of Hilo Muni golf course manager Troy Tamiya, who won HHSAA state titles in 1986 and ‘87, and grandson of UH-Hilo men’s golf coach Earl Tamiya, Trayden hears one question all the time: How come you don’t play golf?
“I get that a lot. I tried it when I was young, but I fell in love with baseball when I was small, and I chose baseball over golf,” said Tamiya, who’s quick on his feet in interviews.
Asked to name his favorite golfer, Tamiya immediately named two: “My dad and grandpa,” he said.
Asked to name his favorite MLB player, Tamiya had a ready answer: Kolten Wong and Jose Altuve, the Houston Astros second baseman.
“We have size in common,” Tamiya said of the 5-6 Altuve. “We beat the odds with our size. I like the way he carries himself on and off the field.”
During the summer, Tamiya attended the Stanford baseball camp, where he could have been lost among a forest of tall trees.
“The players there were 6-2 and 6-4, but that helped him stand out,” Inouye said. “He was the smallest kid there, but he kept up with everybody else.”
Tamiya has been part of Kaha Wong’s Big Island Baseball organization (renamed to Big Island Wood Bat Academy) since he was 10 years old and already has attracted the interest of a few colleges, including Yale and UC San Diego.
The Ivy League school scouted him at a showcase in December in Hilo. Tamiya holds a 4.0 grade-point average and is interested in electrical engineering, sparked by family friend Doug Oki’s company.
‘Do your job’
Tamiya shrugs off his lack of size. He doesn’t carry a chip on his shoulder, unlike quarterback Tom Brady, who uses his sixth-round draft selection as fire. Instead, Tamiya has a Bill Belichick point of view.
“I know I’m a smaller guy, but I can’t let my size get me out of the right mindset,” said Tamiya, who takes Kempo in his limited spare time. “Coach Rory’s big thing is accountability: Do your job for the team. It’s always a team effort.”
Tamiya appreciates how a team sport like baseball is so dependent on everyone working together, from a pitcher inducing a ground ball to a shortstop fielding and throwing and a first baseman recording an out.
In a way, baseball and golf are similar. Both are about repetition. The best ballplayers and golfers are consistent in their approach, something that serves as a reminder from Tamiya’s dad and grandpa.
“Golf compares to baseball because it’s repetition, and it’s easy to fall into good or bad habits,” Tamiya said. “You have to keep working at it. That’s something they’ve experienced deep in their careers.
“I can’t go a day without touching a baseball whether it’s throwing a ball into a net, hitting off a tee, or going to coach Kaha’s cage to hit. All our guys work hard at practice. We don’t take any days off.”
That same work ethic also applies to Tamiya’s focus in the classroom, where he instinctively follows that ‘Do your job’ code.