Maryknoll shuts down upstart Punahou to win ILH championship
By Wes Nakama
This time around, Maryknoll wanted no part of another Punahou upset. The Spartans took care of business early on Wednesday afternoon, scoring three runs in the first inning, two more in the second and then slamming the door shut with 10 runs in the fourth en route to a resounding 15-0 victory for its second straight overall ILH championship.
The victory at Sand Island improved Maryknoll's record to 16-2 and earned the Spartans the league's top seed and first-round bye for next week's DataHouse/HHSAA State Championships at McKinley High School and the University of Hawai'i's Rainbow Wahine Stadium. Punahou is 9-12 but also will participate in the state tournament, starting with Tuesday's 4:30 p.m. first-round game versus Moanalua at McKinley.
The Buff 'N Blue punched their ticket with a stunning 10-9 road upset of Kamehameha in a playoff for second place on Thursday. Punahou had upset the Warriors, 9-8, in an ILH Tournament semifinal on Monday. Then the Buff 'N Blue stunned Maryknoll, 8-7, at Sand Island for the tournament title on Tuesday, setting up Wednesday's winner-take-all final for the overall championship.
"Sometimes in a league, no matter how good or bad you are, a rivalry kind of puts forth optimal level (effort)," Spartans coach John Uekawa said. "Whenever we play Punahou, it's all hands on deck. But kudos to them, because if you look at it, they're tough."
On Wednesday, however, it was all Maryknoll from the get-go.
The Spartans sent seven batters to the plate in the bottom of the first inning, scoring on Palehua Silva's run-scoring double to center field, Serenity Horswill's RBI single to right and Chacha Napoleon's run-scoring single to right to make it 3-0. Maryknoll then stretched the lead to 5-0 in the second on Sheyzhelle Iokia's two-run double to center.
In the fourth inning, the Spartans chased Buff 'N Blue freshman starter Shelby Nagatori, who was the winning pitcher in Punahou's previous four straight victories. The big blow was Iokia's one-out, three-run homer to make it 8-0, and Maryknoll then sent 10 more consecutive batters to the plate to score seven runs after four hits, five walks and a fielder's choice. The game ended after the top of the fifth due to the 10-run rule.
Buff 'N Blue coach Boy Eldredge said his youthful group is vulnerable, especially when Nagatori is not on the mound.
"We're a very young and inexperienced team, we knew that coming in," Eldredge said. "All of our starters except one didn't come back, so we knew we were young to begin with. But this team surprised us in the preseason, we were beating Kapolei, playing heads-up with Mililani, we went through the Mililani tournament pool play undefeated ... So we showed well. But I think the main point was that we can play with just about anybody if Shelby is healthy."
For the Spartans, pitcher Molly Davi scattered six hits and finished the shutout with four strikeouts and one walk. Uekawa said Davi and her teammates did a good job of flushing Tuesday's upset loss to Punahou.
"The first part of it is, you cannot take back something that already happened," Uekawa said. "It's about what is going to happen. So we come in with a fresh attitude, and it just seemed like the first game of the year. They took it like that, they were patient at the plate. Shelby's a good pitcher ... sometimes you're on, sometimes you're off, but the point was we weren't chasing. We were deep in the count."
Five different players paired hits for Maryknoll, led by Iokia (2 for 3, six RBI's) and Reyni Hiraoka (2-for-2, 2 RBI's).