HANAPEPE — The Waimea High School Menehune hosted the Kapa‘a High School Warriors Saturday for a doubleheader at Hanapepe Stadium. Game one went nearly four hours as both teams clawed its way to a 0-0 tie through 9 1/2 innings.
HANAPEPE — The Waimea High School Menehune hosted the Kapa‘a High School Warriors Saturday for a doubleheader at Hanapepe Stadium.
Game one went nearly four hours as both teams clawed its way to a 0-0 tie through 9 1/2 innings.
The bottom of the 10th began with Kapa‘a’s Keola Lutz on the mound and a Wyatt Taniguchi walk. Brock Tacata followed with a single, Mikey Rita then got on base with a bunt, which resulted in the bases being loaded. With Brock Ephan at the plate, a pitch outside of the strike zone got passed catcher Chaz Pacleb, which enabled Taniguchi to race home for the 1-0 Menehune win.
The pitchers duel featured Nick Tabura, Rashan Kuhaulua and Lutz for Kapa‘a and Mikey Rita, BJ Freitas and Rita again for Waimea.
Rita went 4 1/3 innings in his first appearance and was followed by Freitas for 2 2/3 innings before Rita came back for the final three innings to earn the win. Both Rita and Freitas combined for seven strikeouts and no runs in 10 complete innings
Tabura was dominant and finished with an impressive six innings pitched, gave up no runs and tallied eight strikeouts, before Kuhaulua came in for relief in the seventh inning.
For Kapa‘a, Pacleb went 2 for 4 and Tommy Stern went 2 for 2. Rita also contributed at the plate going 2 for 4 for the Menehune.
Both teams were left stymied offensively for most of the game and never really came through with the bats. The Warriors pitching staff finished with 14 strikeouts and eight walks.
Waimea Head Coach Michael Rita instead turned to the small game to ignite his team to victory in the 10th.
Game two
Game two was a different story offensively. Both Kapa‘a and Waimea were able to get its bats going, but ultimately Waimea had more and closed out the game with an 8-5 win.
The Menehune still faced adversity after falling behind 5-0 to the Warriors after 3 1/2 innings. At the top of the fourth, Waimea’s offense would explode. The inning started with a Brock Ephan single and the Menehune would go on to bat the entire lineup.
The inning included a Mikah Wisneski double, a pair of triples from Bryton Lumabao and Freitas and seven total hits to put the Menehune back in front 6-5.
“The first game, Tabura is a great pitcher, and hats off to him he did a great job.” Head Coach Rita said. “Second game we fell behind but our team fought back and had the one big inning, and we were able to add some insurance runs after that.”
In the offensive explosion, Mikey Rita was 3 for 4 with an RBI, Justin Silva was 2 for 4 and Lumabao finished 2 for 2 with an RBI.
Although Waimea’s offense had moments of greatness, Coach Rita believes there is still a lot of room for improvement.
“We have to get better,” said Rita. “To me, we can get better offensively. We have Kaua‘i on Wednesday and they are going to be ready to play.”
Kapa‘a leaves the field with two heartbreaking losses but was not without its offensive performers in the game.
AJ Cummings went 2 for 4 and Pacleb went 2 for 3 with an RBI.
Kapa‘a Head Coach Bryan Aiwohi felt that his players battled but just didn’t have enough offensively and ran out of pitching in game two.
“We battled and we got close, but we just didn’t capitalize,” Aiwohi said. “When we had runners on third, we should have scored. When you do that you are not going to win games like that. We need to work on it.”
Kapa‘a indeed struggled with runners on base leaving a combined 20 runners on base of the two game.
With the loss Kapa‘a drops to 1-2 and will play Kaua‘i High School (0-3) in a doubleheader on Saturday at Vidinha Stadium in Lihu‘e.
Waimea improves to 4-0 on the season and secures a commanding lead in KIF. The Menehune will host the Red Raider on Wednesday at Hanapepe Stadium.
