Losing top local talent
has hit UH baseball, too

None of the big names will play here,
but the 'Bows are happy with
next year's crop

By Paul Arnett
Star-Bulletin

Not keeping the elite local talent from setting sail for the mainland isn't only a problem for the University of Hawaii football staff.

There hasn't been a better crop of local high school talent in baseball this decade, but not one of the top four prep recruits will be wearing a Rainbows uniform next season.

Kamehameha Schools' Dane Sardinha is either bound for Pepperdine or professional baseball, Iolani School's Keoni DeRenne will attend Arizona, and Punahou School's Justin Wayne and Scooter Martines are headed to Stanford and Texas Tech, respectively.

Hawaii coach Les Murakami has his theories as to why the Rainbows went 0-for-4 with these players, and it sounds strikingly similar to what UH football coaches have said for years.

"Number one, I know for sure that Iolani and Punahou put pressure on their kids to go away to school," Murakami said before yesterday's practice. "Number two is peer pressure. All the kids are going away and hardly any are coming here, right?

"And number three is parental pressure. Going away to school supposedly brings you success. All four of these kids also are from private schools, so they've got money. If you can pay $8,000 to $10,000 a year to go to high school here, then it's no problem to pay part of their way to college.

"I have no idea what they are getting from these schools, but it's no more than 70 percent. So there is some cost involved in sending their kids to mainland schools."

Murakami did announce the signing of local players Kona Sampaio of St. Louis School and Kramer Aoki of Mililani High. Aoki is a 5-foot-9 catcher, who is batting .429 and was an All-OIA West and honorable mention All-State selection last year.

Sampaio is a 5-10 catcher batting .384. Murakami also received a letter of intent from David Ferres from College of the Redwoods (Calif.) Junior College.

The 6-1 second baseman is a two-time all-league performer, who is hitting .389 at the end of regular-season play. That brings the total number of signees to nine.

"And we're not done yet," Murakami said. "We plan on signing a couple of junior college pitchers. We know they're coming, but their coach won't let them sign until the season is over.

"We feel this recruiting class will definitely help us with who we have coming back. We're only losing five guys off this team, so there's not a lot of room.

"We're trying to have more depth at every position. This year, we had too many injuries and ended up having to play guys hurt because the guys backing them up weren't on the same level.

"We definitely have some guys who can hit and field. My main concern now is pitching. If we get these two junior college guys, look out because we should be good."

Murakami said the two local recruits aren't in the same caliber as the big four. In his mind, they fall into the second tier of local talent.

"The thing is, we've already signed three players nationally, who could wind up going pretty high in the major-league draft," said Murakami of Shaheed Nelloms of Georgia, Patrick McNair of Virginia and Chris Aguila of Nevada. "We have some good players coming in, who will definitely help us next year."

At one point, Murakami felt Martines would be among the players already on board. During the early signing period last fall, Martines hadn't been offered a full ride by a Division I school.

The UH coaching staff was considering giving Martines what it calls a full ride this spring, but Texas Tech came in and whisked him away to Lubbock.

"It really surprised me because I thought he was coming here," Murakami said of the Punahou shortstop. "No question, he's a talented player, one of the best this year."

Martines said during the Rainbow Easter tournament that he liked the atmosphere at Texas Tech and the way the local fans support the team.

"We would like to have local players like Scooter playing for our team," Murakami said. "But if they get a chance to go away to school, they usually do.

"We feel like we've recruited well this year. Our goal was to improve our offense and we did that. Our pitching should also be improved, so I feel we'll be better because there will be more competition at every position."

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1997 Rainbow Men’s Baseball
Schedule and Record