ASSOCIATED PRESS Members of Hawaii's Waipio team — clockwise from left, Tony Fernandez, Jonathan Abe, Isaac Moises and Sean Clark, bottom center — celebrated their win yesterday.

Waipio heads for
World Series!

The Little Leaguers rally for a
dramatic 5-2 win that has them
going to Williamsport

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By Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.com

Waipio's Little League team proved that baseball at the championship level is not always about the star players. Sometimes, it is about the last kids on the bench.

One of Waipio's least likely heroes came through to help the Hawaii team beat Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, 5-2, last night in the Northwest Regional held in San Bernardino, Calif. The come-from-behind victory earned them a spot in the Little League World Series, Friday to Aug. 25 in Williamsport, Pa.

Waipio plays a team from Worchester, Mass., on Friday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time. The game will be televised on ESPN2. Waipio's second game in the pool play format is Sunday at 3 p.m.

This is Hawaii's first representative at the Little League World Series since Pearl City went to the championship game in 1988, before losing to Taiwan 10-0. Waipio has a chance to do Pearl City one better thanks to little-used Jonathan Abe.

Entering the game as a pinch hitter in the top of the sixth, Abe tied a 2-1 contest with a single. Catcher Isaac Moises gave Waipio the lead for good with a double two batters later.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Jonathan Abe of Hawaii's Waipio team fielded a ball in the sixth inning yesterday against the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, team during the 2002 Little League Baseball Western Region Tournament.

"I wasn't worried," team manager Clyde Tanabe said about Abe's rare appearance at the plate. "He is a good kid and tries his best. I just told him to punch the ball and run."

He might not have had a chance to be the hero had surprise starter Travis Jones, who had not started a game until the tournament final, not held Coeur D'Alene without a hit through the first three innings. Jones walked the first batter of the game, then set down 11 in a row.

Tanabe only planned to let Jones pitch three innings. In the regional tournament, Hawaii won three times when starting pitcher Kurt Tanabe threw and was 0-2 when he was not eligible to pitch. He was not eligible last night because he pitched the game before.

But as far as Jones got them, Waipio still needed to score some runs.

Trailing 2-1 in the sixth, Waipio loaded the bases and asked Abe to come off the bench and save it.

Abe, who did not start but served as a pinch runner and scored Waipio's first run, nervously worked the count to 2-2 before getting a good pitch and drilling it back to the mound. The ball struck Coeur D'Alene pitcher Nick Combo and bounded toward second base, where Kyle Florey could not track it down in time to get Abe at first. But that just tied the game at 2-2. Waipio still needed at least one more run to take the lead.

"He (Abe) is so fast, I knew all he had to do was hit the ball and he would make it," Clyde Tanabe said.

Coeur D'Alene chose to walk leadoff hitter Kurt Tanabe intentionally for the second time in the game and take its chances with Moises. The ploy worked the previous time with Moises going down swinging.

"They (Coeur D'Alene's coaches) told me before the game that if they were going to get beat, Kurt (Moises) was not going to be the one to do it. But I was comfortable in Kama (Moises) because he is a good hitter and he struck out twice. The law of averages was on his side."

ASSOCIATED PRESS Idaho's Coeur d'Alene manager Dennis Fenenbock, left, comforted catcher Aaron Page after yesterday's loss to Waipio.

Moises did not wait for the law of averages, though, pulling the first pitch he saw over the left fielder's head and into the gap, scoring two runners before the Coeur D'Alene left fielder threw Abe out at the plate trying to sneak another run home.

Waipio still had to get three more outs before packing for Williamsport.

Third baseman Kyle Kobayashi, who made the play of the game on a diving stop of a liner in the fourth, got the bottom of the sixth off to a good start by fielding a ground ball and throwing out the leadoff hitter.

Winning Waipio pitcher Corey Yuh, who got out of the jam in the fourth inning and pitched a scoreless fifth, allowed two runners to reach before bearing down and getting the second out of the inning on a trickler back to the mound.

With runners on second and third and the tying run at the plate, Yuh forced Aaron Page into a soft fly to right fielder Tony Fernandez.

Fernandez took a circular route to the ball, nearly lost it, but stabbed it with his glove while falling to the ground. He raised his glove to the air as proof as the umpire signaled the end of the game. Soon after, he became the bottom man in a jubilant bean pile.

"We are not going to change anything now," Clyde Tanabe said. "We are just going to do the best we can and enjoy the experience. It's Williamsport."