LIHUE — The Waimea Menehune jumped on six hits and four Kauai miscues to churn out nine runs in the second inning Tuesday night at Isenberg Park in Lihue. The productive inning fueled Waimea’s 15-2 win on 12 hits over
LIHUE — The Waimea Menehune jumped on six hits and four Kauai miscues to churn out nine runs in the second inning Tuesday night at Isenberg Park in Lihue.
The productive inning fueled Waimea’s 15-2 win on 12 hits over Kauai in a game shortened by the 10-run rule for the Kauai Interscholastic Federation softball championship before a crowd which lined the outfield fence and overflowed onto rooftops of neighboring houses.
“The girls were ready,” said Waimea Coach Teddy Perreira. “They’ve been working hard at practice. Tonight, they were swinging the bat pretty good and putting the ball in play a lot. They made Kauai work hard.”
On the mound, Kiani “Ani” Kamakea limited the Kauai bats to just two hits — an RBI triple by Tammie Yoshimori, and a single from Caley Caires — while striking out three, hitting one batter and walking five, two coming in the fifth inning forcing Perreira twice to calm the pitcher.
“We had a good solid first inning,” said Kauai coach Elena Kealoha. “But the errors got to us in the second inning. Our defense could have pulled us back, but we couldn’t hit, tonight. We’re usually a fourth, or fifth inning team when the girls start getting productive. We have to learn to be in it from the start.”
Waimea outfielder Brandy Domingo wielded the strong bat for Waimea, finishing with a triple and two singles with four RBIs, three coming in the second inning.
Alyssa Miyamoto, finishing with a single, combined with Kauai miscues to push three runs across the plate in the second.
Caysha Goias-Soares scored three times and finished with a pair of singles. Karlyee Rye Malapit marked three RBIs on two singles, Saecha Padasdao-Oyamot tallied two RBIs on a single and a bunt single.
Leadoff hitter Tyrelle Uniciano and Keana Ratcliff-Hogan each marked an RBI on singles.
With the KIF championship win, Waimea earns the right to represent the KIF at the 2015 Datahouse Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II softball championships May 12-15 on Oahu.
“We just have to keep working hard and stay focused,” Perreira said.
Kauai, finishing No. 2 in the KIF, will have an opportunity to advance to the Division II softball championships when it faces a to-be-announced opponent from the Interscholastic League of Honolulu starting at 1 p.m. Saturday at Isenberg Park. The winner of the play-in game will advance to the Division II field.
“We’ll try to do some fun stuff at practice,” Kealoha said. “Usually, when we do fun stuff, we have good practices. This team loves to have fun. This is just an awesome team. They’ve come such a long way from where they were last year. As I said before, they just need to believe in themselves the way the coaches believe in them.”
