OIA champ Kailua
climbs to third spot

It's not a far stretch to say coach Corey Ishigo loathes Top 10 polls.

More accurately, he believes in daily improvement, and that comes only from repetition. In other words, Oahu Interscholastic Association champion Kailua didn't get the day off yesterday.

Nobody's complaining. The Surfriders won their fifth OIA baseball crown in six seasons under Ishigo, rising from the five seed in the East to Saturday's 6-3 title victory over Moanalua.

The Surfriders climbed six spots to No. 3 in this week's Star-Bulletin Baseball Top 10.

"To me, the poll doesn't mean too much. Polls don't play the game, and that's not how things are matched up," Ishigo said last night. "Nothing has changed. We know we still gotta get better. We're not where we want to be."

Ishigo got sterling performances from several players, but he attributes the team's hot streak to another source.

"We got lucky in the tournament. A lot of teams could've beat us in the tournament. One call here, one call there. Errors. It was luck," he insisted. "I don't think we're as good as where we're ranked right now."

Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion Punahou collected all 10 first-place votes. Kamehameha, the ILH runner-up, is at No. 2. The ILH season concludes tomorrow, and the OIA's five state tourney representatives have the week off.

Moanalua, the OIA runner-up, took advantage of the break.

"I gave them off today, to get away from the game a bit. They were really down after the loss," Menehunes coach Scott Yamada said. "Some of them like to surf, so I said, go surf, be kids again."

The break may help a lot of OIA teams.

"This rest is kind of good, a time to recover from minor injuries," Yamada said.

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