No-hitter, 27 walks

It’s not every day that a high school softball pitcher hurls a no-hitter.

But how about a no-hitter with 27 walks? That’s what Amanda Makaiwi did on Friday in Molokai’s 14-12 win over Seabury Hall.

Makaiwi normally plays shortstop or second, but when the Farmers’ regular ace was sidelined by academic issues, Makaiwi took the mound. She struck out eight and hit two batters along the way, but it was her hitting that helped, too.

Her grand slam in the fourth inning made a huge difference.

“No, the walks were not part of any strategy. She was our only pitcher and she hung in there,” athletic director Cammie Kimball said.

With nine errors between the teams, the game took nearly 4 hours to complete. Makaiwi was the winning pitcher, and then was called on to pitch the next day and walked just 20 in a loss to the Spartans.

Buffanblu near the top

Punahou’s Larry Tuileta, a 6-foot-2 sophomore, impressed plenty of coaches and watchers at the Best of the West tournament in Poway, Calif., last week.

Tuileta was selected to the all-tournament team and was noted as one of the tourney’s 10 players who stood out by ESPN.com.

“Tui is a pretty special player and he rubs off on the other guys. We feed off him,” coach Rick Tune said.

Punahou, ranked No. 2 nationally, finished third in the tourney.

“The ranking is an honor, but we’re looking at improving day by day, and we have a lot of work to do,” Tune said. “We started out wobbly, but we got better. We made a lot of young mistakes, but we came out focused on day two.”

Punahou played its best match, Tune added, against a potent Esperanza (Anaheim, Calif.) team that has five seniors en route to D-I college programs. Punahou starts two sophomores and a freshman.

“We’re working on work ethic, attention to detail and consistency,” Tune said. Freshman Micah Ma‘a was steady at setter.

“He’s showed a lot of leadership for a freshman,” Tune added.

Sean Gruebner, who will play for UCLA next season, also played well. So did opposites Kupono Fey and Griffin Bolan, Tune said.

‘Iolani and Kamehameha-Hawaii also played in the tournament. ‘Iolani’s Gabriel Vega and Gruebner were also noted by ESPN.com.