Kamehameha wins
ILH championshipThe Warriors will be the
league's seeded team in the
upcoming state tournament
The whole pot of Interscholastic League of Honolulu baseball gold belongs to Kamehameha.
The Warriors got their bats in gear again and swatted down the defending state champion Mid-Pacific Owls 11-6 last night at Ala Wai Field to wrap up the ILH tournament, the overall league championship and one of the top four seeds in next week's state tournament.
"We hadn't been swinging the bats very well in the last couple of games," said Kamehameha coach Vern Ramie, whose team repeated as ILH champions. "Pitching had been carrying us. The offense came through tonight and did the things they know they can do."
The Warriors (16-3) finished the tournament with 4-0 record and avoided having to play a rubber game tomorrow.
Instead, the tournament runner-up Owls (11-8-1) face the regular-season runner-up Iolani Raiders (12-6) tomorrow for the league's second berth to the states. Game time is 6 p.m. at Ala Wai Field.
"We've got another day so it's not time to wash the uniforms yet," Mid-Pacific coach Dunn Muramaru said. "We just don't have the experience and the quality type of players that Kamehameha has.
"We tried our best. It (the loss) wasn't from a lack of effort. Hey, if you told us after our loss to Saint Louis in the first game of the tournament that we'd be playing Kamehameha for the title and have a chance to make the states in a game against Iolani, I would have taken the (title-game) loss right there."
It looked like it was going to be a tight game with the score tied 1-all after two innings, but the Warriors broke it open with big innings in the third and fifth.
JP Kennedy and Keoni Ruth whacked RBI-doubles and Matt Morgado added an RBI-single in Kamehameha's four-run third for a 5-1 lead.
Mid-Pacific crept back to make it 6-3, but failed to maintain some hard-earned momentum. After manufacturing two runs in the fifth on two walks, Justin Kashiwaeda's bunt single and Troy Hanzawa's sacrifice fly, Muramaru tried a suicide squeeze, but Kashiwaeda was caught in a rundown.
"I had a good feeling about it, but we missed the bunt. It just didn't work," Muramaru said.
Ryson Mauricio, who finished with four RBIs, keyed Kamehameha's four-run fifth with a three-run triple to right as the Warriors took complete command with a 10-3 lead.
The pesky Owls scored one run each in the final two innings and left a total of four runners on base.
"It's great we got the top seed from our league into the states," said Kennedy, one of the Warriors' seniors. "We've been climbing since the beginning of the tournament and we're climbing right at the right time going to Maui.
"We've been keeping our strikeouts down after having struck out way too many times at the beginning of the season. Every game, a different guy comes through for us."
Warriors lefty Issac Kamai went the distance and held the Owls to five hits. Grant Yamaguchi, the first of three Mid-Pacific pitchers, gave up five runs and took the loss.
Kamehameha won't take it too easy for the rest of the week.
"We'll come out tomorrow and work on some of the things we didn't do well tonight and prepare for Maui," Ramie said. "I told our guys that they took their first step toward the goal (state championship) we set before the season."
Hanzawa said the Owls will be ready for Iolani tomorrow.
"We lost, but we can always fight back," he said. "We gotta come back."
The state tournament is scheduled for May 14-17 at Iron Maehara Stadium in Wailuku.
At Ala Wai Field
Grant Yamaguchi, Conan Young (3), Jayson Kramer (5) and Kip Masuda; Issac Kamai and Baba Merino. W -- Kamai. L -- Yamaguchi.
Mid-Pacific (11-8-1) 010 021 1 -- 5 4 4 Kamehameha (16-3) 014 141 x -- 11 9 2
Leading hitters -- MPI: Marc Inamasu 2-2, RBI. Kam: Keoni Ruth 2b, RBI; Nick Freitas 2b; JP Kennedy 2-4, 2b, RBI; Ryson Mauricio 3b, 4 RBIs; Dayne Ogawa 3b.