‘ELE‘ELE — After losing its season finale to Kawaihau in perhaps the biggest upset of the season, East Kaua‘i rebounded with a dramatic 9-8 victory over Lihu‘e in the Senior Softball Championship game on Saturday. Entering the final matchup with
‘ELE‘ELE — After losing its season finale to Kawaihau in perhaps the biggest upset of the season, East Kaua‘i rebounded with a dramatic 9-8 victory over Lihu‘e in the Senior Softball Championship game on Saturday.
Entering the final matchup with a 21-2 record, East Kaua‘i was poised to regain its form and finish strong. Lihu‘e proved to be anything but a willing contributor.
The teams were scoreless in the top of the second inning when Lihu‘e used three singles and a sacrifice fly to plate three runs. East Kaua‘i failed to put up a run and headed to the third trailing 3-0. Lihu‘e added two runs on two hits in the third to take a commanding 5-0 lead.
The East Kaua‘i bats finally awoke behind Frank Bukoski’s two-run single. Lihu‘e answered with another run in the top of the fourth to go up 6-2, but it was a lead they would not hold for much longer.
A double by Tom Ganong got the ball rolling in the bottom of the fourth for East Kaua‘i. Josh Huddy and Jerome Hew followed with singles. A triple by Mike Curtis and a sacrifice fly by Damien Victorino and all of a sudden, the game was knotted at 6-6.
They followed up with two runs in the fifth inning to take an 8-6 lead. Now it was Lihu‘e’s turn to make a comeback. They responded with a two-out rally consisting of three hits to even the score, once again, at 8-8.
Both teams were held scoreless in the seventh inning and moved into extra frames. Lihu‘e could not bring its runner home from second base and East Kaua‘i had a chance for the win.
With a runner on second base, Josh Huddy singled to move him to third. Jerome Hew then ended the contest with a single to give East Kaua‘i the 9-8 victory and send them to Waiopio, O‘ahu as Kaua‘i’s representative for the A Division’s state tournament on Aug. 4-6.
Putting up multi-hit games for Lihu‘e were Ron Alfonso, Steven Carvalho, Bernard Mahuiki and Peter Rayno. For East Kaua‘i, Alex Youn, Larry Ephan, Tom Ganong, Josh Huddy, Mike Curtis and Jerome Hew had multiple hits, while the team’s inspirational leader, Damien Victorino, 76, was 1 for 1 with a walk and a sacrifice fly.
