Kaua‘i High School’s starting pitcher Wailana Borrero was so close to pitching a perfect game. “It was toward the end of the season (last year). I pitched a one-hitter against Kapa‘a High School,” she said. The Red Raiders were sitting
Kaua‘i High School’s starting pitcher Wailana Borrero was so close to pitching a perfect game.
“It was toward the end of the season (last year). I pitched a one-hitter against Kapa‘a High School,” she said.
The Red Raiders were sitting on an 8-0 lead, through five innings, before they stumbled in the sixth.
This year, 16-year-old Borrero returns for her junior season with pitching a no-hitter as her personal goal. In this past weekend’s season-opening double header against Kapa‘a, she came close to it.
In the second game, Borrero got halfway through without allowing a hit before one came in the fourth inning.
But she still has a whole season left to go.
Borrero started playing softball when she was 7 years old and has been playing in leagues on Kaua‘i and O‘ahu ever since. She works out and on her pitching 11 months out of the year, stating that pitching takes dedication both mentally and physically.
It might help, too, that her father, Darrell Borrero, is a well-known and successful coach. During her freshman year at Kaua‘i, she, with her father as the coach, led the Raiders to a Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation championship.
Also that year, Borrero was named the KIF player of the year, an honor she said she was surprised to receive. Advancing to the state championship tournament, the Raiders finished in fifth place.
Last year, Borrero pitched her way to another KIF championship and state championship berth. In the quarterfinals, the then second-seeded Raiders fell behind Pahoa High School and were in danger of being eliminated. Bad weather conditions postponed the game to the next day, where Kaua‘i scored eight unanswered runs for the win and a chance to continue on through the tournament.
Borrero was awarded another win when Kaua‘i defeated Maryknoll School in the semis, sending the Raiders to the state championship game to face the girls from Sacred Hearts Academy.
Kaua‘i fell behind Sacred Hearts early on. After five innings, Kaua‘i made a move when Borrero reached on a error and scored on Jessica
Iwata’s double down the left field line. In the end, Sacred Hearts won out, 5-0, and the Raiders hoisted the second-place trophy.
“I still think of that game,” Borrero said. “I think about all my games (after a loss). But time heals it. It was a big game for us. We worked hard and we weren’t sad that we lost, we were just happy that we got that far.”
Borrero said, that despite her positive outlook on past games and the season to come, she’s still very hard on herself when it comes to her pitching.
“There’s lots of pressure (to be a pitcher),” she said. “You’re afraid to make mistakes. Most pitchers want to do it on their own, but that’s not real. That’s what the team’s there for. They’re there to bail you out. But I feel like it’s my fault, like I let them hit the ball.”
Her best friend and teammate, Iwata, emphasized Borrero’s seriousness when it comes to softball. The two of them practically started their softball careers together.
“Before, when we were down or if someone would make a mistake, she’d be mad, but she’s got better,” Iwata said. “Now she’s more of a leader.”
Borrero, Iwata, Krystal Ijima and Amanda Mayer share the co-captain duties.
“She’s more serious on the field and she just fools around when she’s not on the field,” Iwata said.
Fooling around includes hanging out at Iwata’s house, making homemade ice cream, baking cakes and going to get pedicures.
“I also always make time to have pedicures,” Borrero said.
It’s something she and her mother, Kris Borrero, do together. She and her mother also go to get full-body massages, and in between those treatments, Borrero gets massages from her parents.
After tearing her shoulder about three years ago, Borrero went through a series of physical therapy and found that massages help lessen chronic pain in her shoulder.
Aside from softball, Borrero also excels in the classroom and said that even though it doesn’t seem like it, school is her ultimate first priority.
She takes honors and advanced placement classes and said she would never think of taking home a C.
She currently maintains a 3.7 grade point average. She still has a year and a half to go before graduating, but she “will definitely be going away to college.”
She said her parents instilled in her, at a very early age, the importance of a college education.
She hopes to get a degree in physical therapy, specializing in sports injuries.
She will travel to Colorado this summer with the Pearls, a softball team she’s been playing with on O‘ahu, to compete in the largest softball tournament in the country, with more than 300 teams there.
But first thing’s first: She wants to win the KIF title this year.
“We still have to come strong,” she said. “This year, the teams are more talented because we all are playing at the same skill level.”
Then of course, there’s what she herself is going after.
“I want that perfect game,” she said.
She has many chances to get to it. Kaua‘i next plays Waimea High School, with the game starting at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow at Waimea Canyon Park.
Round 1 of KIF play ends the first week of April, with the regular season ending mid-May.
Wailana Borrero
Age: 16
Family: Parents Kris and Darrell Borrero, older brother
Hometown: Lihu‘e
Position: Right-handed pitcher
Other sports: Soccer (seven years AYSO, four years HYSO), basketball, volleyball, bowling
Awards: KIF Player of the Year (2006), HHSAA Allstate team honorable mention, KIF Allstar (2006, 2007)
Club play: Traveled with Kaua‘i Kine, a team made up of girls from Kaua‘i, Kapa‘a and Waimea high schools, to Kansas for National AFA Fastpitch Softball tournament, to Carlsbad, Calif., for a Goodwill tournament.
Interests: Making homemade ice cream, experimenting with flavors, baking cakes and getting pedicures.
