PAHOA – Failure to throw strikes and mental errors will take a toll on any baseball coach.
Kohala’s ability to limit both snafus Monday left Vern Karratti in a better place than Pahoa’s Scott Salfen.
Pitchers Dreg’n Roque-Lewis and Kaimi Hook kept the Daggers off-balance, and the Cowboys took advantage of myriad Pahoa base running errors in an 8-3 victory in a BIIF Division II game.
“Pitching has been good for us this year,” Karratti said. “We have a lot of pitchers.
“What’s been killing us is errors. We weren’t that bad this game.”
Kohala (3-6) struck for four runs in the first as Pahoa starter Lava Benn struggled with his command and lasted just five batters, giving up hits to Jayven Amanonce and Austin Salvador-Racoma. Dayton Kumai-Isabel capped the rally with a two-run single against reliever Julian Beimler, who finished the final 6 2/3 innings.
Roque-Lewis was effective through four innings by throwing roughly 75 percent off-speed pitches. The sophomore allowed three runs and sixth hits with four strikeouts and didn’t walk a batter. Hook struck out three in three innings and yielded only two hits with two walks.
Each was aided when the Daggers (0-10) ran themselves out of at least three rallies.
“Our base running was terrible,” Salfen said.
“If we would have run the bases right and got some timely hits, we could have scored 10 runs,” he said.
Beimler and Caleb Tamashiro hit run-scoring singles in the fourth for Pahoa.
Beimler struck out six but hit four batters.
“A lack of pitching ahead in the count has hurt us all year,” Salfen said.
Amanonce also hit a two-run single in the fourth, and Salvador-Racoma singled and scored on a throwing error in the third. Hook and Dylan Paul Torres-Salvador each had two hits.
“What has been improving has been our hitting,” Karratti said. “I tell the boys to go out, have fun, work together and back each other up.”
The Cowboys stranded nine runners, including the bases loaded in the sixth when Pahoa left-fielder Joaquin Ridgway made a nice running catch to rob Tate Fernandez.
Hilo 5, Kealakehe 3: Noah Higa-Gonsalves drove in the go-ahead run with a single in the fourth as the Vikings won at Wong Stadium despite amassing only three hits.
Makana Kaluau struck out four in six innings for the Waveriders (1-7), making sure the game was much closer than the 16-0 romp that the Vikings (7-2) enjoyed when the teams met last Tuesday.
Donald Saltiban (four innings, five strikeouts, two hits) got win, while Ryan Ragual (three innings, two hits, three strikeouts) earned the save.
Josiah Factora hit a two-run double for Hilo and Eric Riveira had an RBI hit.
Softball
Kamehameha’s Mykala Tokunaga combined to strike out 15 in a doubleheader against Kohala in Kapaau, and the Warriors swept to clinch a berth to the HHSAA Division II tournament as the outright regular season champion.
Tokunaga tossed two complete games, striking out 10 in an 11-1 victory in the opener. At the plate, she had three hits, including a double, and Taylor Sullivan finished with two hits and two RBIs and Jessica Cameros drove in two runs.
Mikayla Kekoa struck out seven in taking the loss for the Cowgirls (6-3), and Kiana Cazimero and Setsuko Kimura collected RBIs.
In a 11-1 win in the second game, Sullivan finished with two hits and three RBIs and Tokunaga drove in two for Kamehameha (11-0).
Symphony Kauanoe pitched three inning and took the loss.
