By BILL O’REAR
By BILL O’REAR
Tribune-Herald sports editor
A not-so-funny-thing happened to Hilo’s Edgar Barclay on his way to pitching a no-hitter. Instead of finishing with an impressive win, the hard-throwing hurler was saddled with a tough 3-1 defeat to Chesterfield, Va. in the PONY Baseball World Series on Monday.
The 10-team, double-elimination tournament for players ages 13-14 is being played in Washington, Pa. and runs through Thursday.
Hilo (1-1) entered the top of the seventh inning with a 1-0 lead and Barclay in control. But the young pitcher ran into trouble in the inning, walking three batters and throwing two wild pitches as Chesterfield scored three runs and then held on to the hard-fought victory.
Barclay finished with a no-hitter, but the not-so-funny seventh inning proved to be the downfall for the previously unbeaten Big Islanders.
“These are kids and things are going to happen,” Hilo coach Eric Kurosawa said. “Edgar pitched a good game. It’s just one of those things. But we’re still in it, we’re going to take it one game at a time, and we’ll see what happens.”
Kurosawa declined comment when asked about the umpiring — how a dominant pitcher through six innings would suddenly run into such major trouble and open the door for the opponents.
“We’re here and focused on playing baseball,” Kurosawa said. “We’ll be ready to play tomorrow and we’ll need to play and win two games if we want to advance further in the tournament.
“The kids were down after today’s loss. But this is a special bunch of kids and they’ll come back.”
Hilo collected only two hits off the Chesterfield pitcher and plated its only run in the bottom of the third inning. Kegan Miura walked and sprinted to third base on Shaun Kurosawa’s single. Miura then motored home on a wild pitch to make it 1-0.
The lead would hold up until the difficult top of the seventh.
Kurosawa said Hilo plays Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico at 6:30 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time today and if the Big Islanders win, they play a second elimination contest at 2 p.m.
At Washington, Pa.
Chesterfield, Va. 000 000 3 — 3 0
Hilo 001 000 0 — 1 2
RBI World Series
Hoboken, N.J. 4, Hilo 3: At St. Paul, Minn., Hoboken, N.J. scored two runs in the top of the seventh inning and edged Hilo 4-3 in cross-pool action in the RBI Softball World Series.
The eight-team tournament for girls ages 19 and under continues through Wednesday. Today, the teams start the elimination round, with Hilo (2-3) taking on Cleveland at 2:30 a.m. HST at the Dunning West Field.
“It was a very tough day,” Hilo coach Tracy Miyashiro said. “Our errors really hurt us — we had five. But we came back in the bottom of the seventh and had a chance. We scored one run and had a runner on third base when the final out came.”
Hilo plated two runs in the bottom of the third inning to take a 2-1 advantage before Hoboken plated a run in the fifth to tie the contest at 2-2.
Then in the seventh, Nerylix Cerda scored on a passed ball to lift the New Jersey team on top 3-2 before the visitors added an insurance run.
Jovanique Meneses had three hits, including a double, to lead Hoboken’s six-hit attack.
Bethany Batangan and Skylar Thomas (double) each had two hits for Hilo — the only hits for the Big Islanders in the game. Thomas also had a run batted in.
New Jersey’s Eddilynn Figueroa went the distance to pick up the win. Hilo’s Aliesa Kaneshiro also hurled seven innings and took the loss. She allowed six hits and only one earned run while Hilo had five errors. Kaneshiro walked four and struck out four.
“Our 3-4-5 hitter have struggled throughout the tournament,” Miyashiro said. “We really need to have our bats come alive tomorrow (today) to keep going in the tournament. If we can get back to playing like we can, we’ll be OK.”
At St. Paul, Minn.
Hoboken, N.J. 001 010 2 — 4 6 4
Hilo 002 000 1 — 3 4 5