LIHU‘E — There would be 10 more teams if we had the facilities, said Kyle Oshima, president of the Lihu‘e Baseball League. “We’ve already got teams scheduling for next year,” Oshima said. “If we had the facilities, we could also
LIHU‘E — There would be 10 more teams if we had the facilities, said Kyle Oshima, president of the Lihu‘e Baseball League.
“We’ve already got teams scheduling for next year,” Oshima said. “If we had the facilities, we could also be hosting the state Bronco championships.”
Facilities were the only shortcoming of the 2009 Da Bash that opened with bracket play, Saturday at the Lihu‘e County Park and overflowing into a field constructed at Isenberg Park.
“We’ll be having a night game at Isenberg since they have lights there,” said Tom Vallatini, a former president of the LBL and announcing the contest between the Mililani Poi Pounders and the LBL Mustang Yankees.
Under the current setup of the Lihu‘e County Park, two Mustang games are played at the same time with one Bronco game taking place at the Bronco field. Isenberg Park is set up to do one
Bronco game.
Cory Gokan, the tournament director for Da Bash, said overall, there are 24 teams participating in both the Mustang and Bronco divisions. Of those, 16 teams are from off-island, the majority coming from O‘ahu.
“We couldn’t do this without the community support,” Gokan said. “Some of those who have come forward are Service Rentals who provide the lights, and Roy Nishida of the East Kaua‘i Lions who said the Lions will take care of the big-screen movie planned for Sunday night following the lu‘au for all the participating teams.”
Gokan said a lot of the teams have coaches and staff that have grown up on Kaua‘i and this is a good time for them to show their teams where they grew up and meet some of the people they grew up with.
Tom Takayama is one of the volunteer coaches with the Mililani Poi Pounders that played its first game Saturday afternoon.
“This is the first time we’re
doing this. When we heard about it in Honolulu, we thought we’d try and put together a team to have some fun, here,” Takayama said. “For the boys, they are real excited to be here. It’s something different than playing in Honolulu.”
Warren Koga and Craig Koga were two of the originators of Da Bash, but cannot remember how long ago the event started.
“We just need more space, now,” Warren said. “Every year, there are more teams that want to be part of the fun.”
Koga said even without the tournament, every corner of the Lihu‘e County Park is used for different team practices with the Shetland program using the center of the park for its practice.
Bracket play for both Mustangs and Broncos continue through Sunday morning with the playoffs to start Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.
Championship for the Mustang game is scheduled to start at noon, Monday. The Bronco championship is scheduled to start at 12:45 p.m.
