Gold Coast’s Kamalani Doctor veered off third base nearly halfway to home and then stopped, just daring Hilo to come tag her.
So began a softball version of a cat-and-mouse game in which Doctor had it both ways. She was being chased, but she was also on the attack.
“Just trying to confuse the players so I can run home,” Doctor said Saturday after Gold Coast Little League’s 16-6 victory.
When Hilo’s pitcher approached, she ran toward the plate and turned back to avoid a tag, and during the ensuing rundown Hilo players were lining up on the third-base line to get in on the action. Drawing throws and avoiding tags, the savvy Doctor baited Hilo into a mistake and she pounced, scampering home.
“Scoring runs,” she said, simply smiling when asked about her favorite part of Game 1 of the District 4 Major Tournament.
The sun-splashed day at Walter Victor complex was fitting for the visitors from the west, and Doctor’s back-and-forth jaunt highlighted Gold Coast’s by-any-means necessary approach to getting on base, be it a walk, error, hit by pitch or the occasional hit, and then moving around to score, be it by stolen base, wild pitch, passed ball or sheer chicanery.
“Relax, don’t be nervous, be confident,” coach Travis Bondallian said. “Try to get the other team to make a mistake.”
Sunny Akau allowed only two three hits and no earned runs with five strikeouts in the five-inning TKO. Gold Coast will go for the sweep at 10 a.m. Sunday and a chance to earn a trip to the West Regional in California. Game 3, if necessary, would be Monday.
“I don’t want to get to Monday,” Bondallian said. “I want it done tomorrow.”
Hilo made it interesting with a five-run second inning that came courtesy of four errors. One play featured a fielding and a throwing error, so Kailee Aiona’s grounder with two runners aboard wound up being just as effective as a three-run home run.
Akau, however, had it much easier than her counterparts in the circle on the other side, including starter Brianne Felipe, who struck out three. Hilo was undone by myriad errors and miscues, so much so that Gold Coast batted around twice and managed all of its runs on only four hits.
“I think it was first-game jitters,” Hilo coach Kelly Galdones said. “I’m hoping they got it out of their system. Tomorrow is a new day and they start all over.”
Kailee Wagner finished with a hit and an RBI for Hilo. Emily Hora and Jaime Santos also had singles.
Gold Coast is proof of the adage that 80 percent of life is showing up. The organization is Hawaii’s Little League gold standard if not lone wolf since 2013, often getting a bye straight to regionals in the Seniors (15-16), Juniors (13-14) and Majors (12-and under) divisions, though this is the second time in three years that Hilo has put together a 12-U all-star team.
“We’ve been around since 2012, never really had any opponents, just building or program and building our program,” said Bondallian, a Honokaa High graduate who’s coached all ages in baseball and softball, but prefers the latter.
“It feels like we have more pressure (here), we have the target on our back,” he said.
Chesney Palos led off the game with a single to fuel a five-run rally and she also drove in a run with groundout in the the third. Doctor and Akau collected a hit apiece.
Iliana Kaiamakinia also had a hit, though she might not of if she had taken the advice of her coach.
In the third, Bondallian asked Kaiamakinia to bunt, but she gave him an odd look, as if to say, “Why?”
“Sure enough, that’s when she ripped one up the middle just to prove me wrong,” Bondallian said.
Baseball
McKenna Wakakuwa hit a home run among his two hits and was the winning pitcher as Hilo beat North Hawaii 10-5 to advance to the District 4 Majors championship game Monday.
Kinohi Lindsey took the loss but also hit a three-run home run, his second in as many days for North Hawaii (1-1), which will face West Side at 1 p.m. Sunday for a berth in the title game. Aiden Joaquin added two hits.
• West Side 15, Ka’u 2: In an elimination game, Trez Uemoto doubled and singled and Kainoa Lorenzo and Zes Tolentino also had two hits to power West Side (1-1), which used Keoki Alani and Jaeden Meyer on the mound.
Caleb Crook, Loea Kaupu, Manoa Reyes and Ocean Session had a hit apiece for Ka’u.