Games this early in the ILH season often come down to which team is in midseason form.
No. 7 Punahou took advantage of a plethora of Saint Louis mistakes to pull out a 5-1 victory on Tuesday afternoon at Goeas Field.
Kalae Harrison doubled twice and scored two runs and leadoff man Cody Hirano went 2-for-4 with two runs scored for the Buffanblu (2-1), who have won both league games so far when pitching ace Kahi Bisho hasn’t started.
Senior Kyle Uemura battled through five innings and allowed only one run on five hits to earn the win. He struck out two and walked three but managed to strand seven Saint Louis runners.
“Great starting pitchers are able to put together a decent performance even if they’re struggling and Kyle didn’t have his best performance, but he battled and and displayed that,” Punahou coach Keenan Sue said.
Charles Lopez doubled and scored Saint Louis’ only run in the fifth inning on a sacrifice fly by Stanley McKenzie.
The Crusaders put the first two men on base on back-to-back singles, but Punahou shortstop Kyson Donahue tagged out Cole Kashimoto at second base after Kashimoto came off the bag.
The Buffanblu faked a throw back to Uemura on the mound and Donahue waited until Kashimoto stepped off the bag to make the tag for the first out.
“That was just Kyson being a ballplayer,” Sue said. “I didn’t even see it, to be honest, so unfortunately I can’t take credit for that. It’s been done to us before and we don’t practice it, but that was definitely a momentum swing.”
The Crusaders, who have three returning starters from last year, made three errors but also ran into multiple outs on the base paths, including by the leadoff runner in scoring position in consecutive innings with nobody out.
“It’s just amazing how we shot ourselves in the foot today,” Saint Louis coach George Gusman said. “We got quite a few guys in today, even if it’s one at-bat, and sent a message.”
Hirano led off the bottom of the first with a single and scored when Saint Louis catcher Caleb Lomavita’s throw to get the runner trying to steal second with two outs got away from Lopez covering the bag.
Harrison roped his first double with one out in the third inning and scored when Saint Louis misplayed an inning-ending ground ball.
Harrison sandwiched his second double between singles by Hirano and Jake Tsukada in the fifth inning and catcher Ryan Nishi added a two-out RBI single for a 5-1 lead.
Punahou’s Matt McConnell replaced Uemura in the sixth inning and gave up one hit in two shutout innings to end it.
