KEKAHA — After Thursday, there will be only one team with one loss in the playoffs in the Protect Our Nation’s Youth baseball league. Micah Wisneski, the catcher for the Kekaha Diamondbacks, ended a three-hour marathon in the Kekaha heat
KEKAHA — After Thursday, there will be only one team with one loss in the playoffs in the Protect Our Nation’s Youth baseball league.
Micah Wisneski, the catcher for the Kekaha Diamondbacks, ended a three-hour marathon in the Kekaha heat with a two-RBI shot that advanced the Diamondbacks on a 20-10 win over the Hanapepe Cubs, Tuesday at the Kekaha Park.
That shot ended the game on the 10-run ruling in the bottom of the fifth inning with two outs as the Cubs tried to keep their playoffs hopes alive.
Kekaha, the victim of early Cubs’ hitting and running, was chasing a 9-1 deficit midway through the second inning before making its comeback on a pair of multi-run inside-the-park roundtrips by Alika Emayo and Wyatt Taniguchi, capitalizing on Cubs’ errors and an open field in Kekaha.
The Cubs jumped out of the bus with four runs in the opening inning and followed that with five more runs in the second fueled by a three-run RBI double to centerfield by Isiah Aguinaldo with no outs for the 9-1 reading.
Kekaha answered that deficit in the bottom of the second when Greg Cupo-Perreira tripled to left with one out, Cupo-Perreira coming home after Cubs’ pitching gave up three straight walks, the walk to ‘Anu Malama marking an RBI.
A costly error saw three more runs cross the plate behind Emayo’s bat. Kekaha put two more base runners aboard on a walk and a single before Taniguchi cleared the bases for the second time in the inning, pulling the Diamondbacks to a 9-8 deficit.
The Diamondbacks stalemated the contest in the third inning when Kahepu‘u, tripling to right, scored on a wild pitch and Emayo, singling to center, came home on a balk for the 10-10 tie.
In the fourth, Kekaha, shutting down the Cubs in order, cranked out eight more runs fueled by a two-RBI triple to center by Cupo-Perreira for
the 18-10 lead, its first of the game.
With the win, the Diamondbacks will match up against Kalawai at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday afternoon at the Kalawai field.
The winner of that game will advance to face the undefeated Lihu‘e squad at 10 a.m. on Sunday at Vidinha Stadium for the winner-take-all match.
