Caleb Freitas-Fields made his first mark on the Big Island baseball scene in 2011 when the ace right-hander pitched a Hilo 12-and-under team to a state PONY League championship. ADVERTISING Caleb Freitas-Fields made his first mark on the Big Island
Caleb Freitas-Fields made his first mark on the Big Island baseball scene in 2011 when the ace right-hander pitched a Hilo 12-and-under team to a state PONY League championship.
Freitas-Fields contributed as a freshman at Waiakea in 2013, delivered a complete game a year later in a BIIF championship-clinching victory against Hilo and was an all-league third baseman for the Warriors in 2015.
However, his steady progression ended when he didn’t play baseball his senior season.
While it may have appeared that Freitas-Fields’ baseball career was going to finish much more quietly than it started, that all ended Friday with one crack of the bat at the RBI World Series. He powered Hilo-based Nobu Yamauchi to the Senior (19U) division championship game, hitting a go-ahead home run a in 4-3 victory against Chicago.
Nobu Yamauchi, which beat Atlanta 10-3 earlier in the day in the quarterfinals, will play Patterson, N.J., at 5:30 a.m. Saturday for the title in a game that will be streamed on MLB.com.
Nobu Yamauchi coach James Hirayama said Patterson’s team is a sight to see.
“They are extremely large, big boys,” he said. “If you stacked all of our players and all of their players next to each other, they would probably be 30 feet higher.
“Tomorrow, we play Goliath.”
The Big Islanders needed just two pitchers Friday, riding complete games from Waiakea senior David Nakamura and 2017 Pearl City High graduate Carson Okada.
Kamehameha senior Justyce Ishii will get the start in the title game.
“We’re optimistic,” Hirayama said. “For us to win this, it’s going to take a team effort.
“I told our boys we’ll have to support each other to win.”
Hirayama said Freitas-Fields got a job after graduating in 2016, but he stayed in touch with game by playing RBI last season.
“Our whole goal was for him to get accustomed to baseball again,” Hirayama said. “He’s a super good young man and he’s very talented and athletic. He can use that, and our goal is to encourage him to think about going to college using the tools he has.”
In the semifinal, Nobu Yamauchi fell behind 3-0 before tying the game in the fifth. With one out, Austin Damata-Aina singled, and Matthew Aribal and Casey Yamauchi reached on hits to load the bases with two outs, setting the table for Jacob Igawa’s two-run single and Christopher Aiona’s game-tying hit.
Aribal, the other player from Pearl City on the team, and Aiona, a 2016 Kamehameha graduate, each finished with two hits.
Freitas-Fields homered to lead off the bottom of the sixth, and Okada struck out the first two batters in retiring the side in the seventh to complete a four-hitter.
Earlier, Kamehameha junior Dustin Asuncion hit a three-run home run to give his team the lead against Atlanta, and Nobu Yamauchi broke open the game with a six-run rally in the fifth that was highlighted by two-run singles by Aiona and Nakamura.
Nakamura pitched a six-hitter, allowing only one earned run. Yamauchi – a Waiakea senior whose grandfather the team’s namesake – Nakamura, Freitas-Fields each had multihit games.
Both teams in the finals have 4-1 records. Patterson lost Chicago in pool play, but it beat Puerto Rico, the team that handed Nobu Yamauchi its only loss.
“When I saw Patterson’s coach before the tournament, I told him “see you in the final,’” Hirayama said.
