[ HPU BASEBALL ]
Sea Warriors move
into Aloha Stadium
Hawaii Pacific baseball coach Allan Sato will no longer be able to hide from a bad day at the park. But he will be able to relive the good days easier.
Sato's NCAA Division II program is moving from Hans L'Orange Park to Aloha Stadium for the rest of the season and beyond. For Sato, Aloha Stadium is only a relay throw away from home.
"Believe it or not, I can see into the stadium from my lanai," Sato said. "I would always look out the window and kind of dream of playing here."
The Sea Warriors have 18 dates on the new FieldTurf, beginning tomorrow with a doubleheader against No. 9 Tampa at 4 p.m.
HPU joins Central Florida, George Mason and Delta State as college teams that play their games on the surface, which Sato says is "perfect." The program has played its home games at Hans L' Orange since Sato took over the program in 1995 and will continue to play a limited schedule at the park in Waipahu.
The move has been three years in the making, as Sato and stadium manager Eddie Hayashi worked out the details. When FieldTurf was installed in the stadium last year, the move became more urgent.
"It was always my thing since we took this program to try to do something to pick up the level from recruiting to scheduling to venue," Sato said. "This is just a part of our long-range plan to move up."
The move sets up the possibility of HPU hosting UH-Manoa for the first time, but Sato says that possibility had nothing to do with the move since it hurts UH to play a D-II team anywhere.
"In that situation, (Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso) calls the shots," Sato said. "He has been gracious enough to squeeze us in for games when he can the last few years. I'd like to get them over here, but it wasn't a factor in the decision."
Although Trapasso's squad won't rush to be one of the few baseball teams to play on the new surface -- the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are the only major league club to play on it -- he will be paying closer attention to HPU games.
"I will definitely want to wander down there and take a look at how it plays because we will have to replace our own turf at some point," Trapasso said. "But we aren't playing over there, we only have a limited number of games we can play against non-Division I opponents anyway."
Sato expects the move to help him in scheduling and recruiting, and says he has already seen the interest from other teams like Florida State, which has contacted the coach. The Sea Warriors will play a strictly D-II schedule this year, with the exception of meetings with UH-Manoa and UH-Hilo. His players have already shown him that the move will pay off.
"We were practicing at Keehi Lagoon and guys would be running to the field with one leg in their pants at 2:45 p.m. to make the 3 o'clock practice," Sato said. "We started practicing here and they are in the locker room at 11:30 a.m. right after their classes finish."
As happy as his players are, Sato's main goal is to bring college baseball to the Leeward side of the island and hopes the communities around his lifelong home of Aiea rally around his program.
"The Leeward side has been kind of ignored," Sato said. "We plan on doing a lot of promotions to make our team the community's team."
