WAIMEA — Battling a case of the spring break blues, the Kaua‘i Red Raiders escaped the Waimea Canyon Park with its third win Wednesday. The Red Raiders held off a comeback effort by Waimea in the last two innings with
WAIMEA — Battling a case of the spring break blues, the Kaua‘i Red Raiders escaped the Waimea Canyon Park with its third win Wednesday.
The Red Raiders held off a comeback effort by Waimea in the last two innings with a 9-4 edge, its third win in the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation softball season.
MarieBeth Watanabe, the Menehune’s third base and lead off hitter, finished the day by scoring twice and getting a hit.
Erin Connelly opened the bottom of the seventh with a solid hit that dropped between second and rightfield and advanced on a sacrifice bunt.
With one out, Watanabe stepped to the plate and an infield dribbler was misplayed by the Raiders, the ball rifling into rightfield.
That was enough to push Connelly across the plate with Watanabe dogging her heels for Waimea’s fourth run.
Kelcie Igne, playing a strong second base for the Menehune, followed with a single, but was left stranded as the next two batters came up empty.
That was the story for Waimea who had to come from a 5-0 deficit and scored all four of its runs in the final two innings of play.
Kaua‘i, rolling behind the strong pitching of Wailana Borrero, opened the books early, posting three runs fueled by a Krystal Ijima RBI double.
Borrero, in picking up the win on the mound, gave up four hits to Waimea in her tenure which was punctuated with leather-slapping power balls.
But it didn’t end on the mound as Borrero finished the day leading the Kaua‘i bats with three hits and scoring twice.
Borrero’s catcher, Ijima, followed with two hits, both of them two-baggers, and scoring once.
Following Ijima’s ground rule double in the fourth, Waimea’s coach Teddy Pereira unveiled Shana Tafiti, the Arizona State softball prospect, who demonstrated her recovery from an injury which prevented her from showing during the recent invitational softball tournament.
Tafiti took the mound with confidence and matched Borrero’s power pitching with her own style, slapping the leather of her sister’s mitt behind the plate.
But Kaua‘i shortstop Jessica Iwata didn’t let that stop her as she whacked into an RBI double when facing Tafiti.
Following a scoreless two frames, Tafiti’s layoff from the field began to take its toll as Waimea struggled to close the door with two outs in the seventh, giving up two runs on bases-loaded walks.
Melissa Iida got aboard with two outs to load the bases for Kaua‘i. Ijima walked to first to score Adriana Medeiros who got first on her sole hit of the night. The Raiders’ catcher was followed by Borrero who also walked to first for another RBI.
With the win, the Raiders get to enjoy the Easter weekend while the Menehune look for its first win when they travel to the New Kapa‘a Ball Park for a twin-bill against Kapa‘a Saturday.
Similarly, Kapa‘a, 0-2 on the season and playing a tough brand of ball during the pre-season tournament, is looking for its first win after dropping the season opening double-header to Kaua‘i last weekend.
First pitch in the double-header goes off at 10 a.m., and there is no admission fee.
