Nanakuli’s offense is good, but it’s not good enough to score 10 runs in its sleep.

The Golden Hawks woke from a long bus ride to Waialua and beat the Bulldogs 11-2 on Tuesday.

Nanakuli, which has scored in double figures in five of its six games this season, scored 10 of its 11 runs after the fourth inning. The Golden Hawks put 23 up on Farrington and 18 on Aiea and scored 26 against Anuenue, but the defending OIA White champions were coming off a 3-1 loss in their last game when they traveled to Kaiser.

“We were flat, the adjustment of these long trips, we started kind of late,” Nanakuli coach Ricky Gusman said. “Not to take anything away from Kaiser — they were the better team that day — but we are a slow-starting team and we need to work on that.”

Waialua gave the Golden Hawks the edge in the top of the first when Emma Kawaiaea drove in Alexis Paulo-Meyers for a 1-0 lead. Meyers reached on the first of six errors by the Bulldogs.

But Waialua, which has a potent offense of its own with 39 runs in its first three games of the season, got it back with two runs in the bottom of the first on RBI singles by Sabrina Tolentino and Amber Alejandro.

Both pitchers settled down after that and threw three scoreless innings apiece before Nanakuli woke up and roughed up Waialua’s Tolentino.

Paulo-Meyers led off the inning with a double, and the next three batters singled to make it 4-2 Nanakuli. Precious Paulo-Meyers scored the fifth run on a Waialua passed ball. Nanakuli’s first four hitters in the lineup combined to go

11-for-20 with eight RBIs.

“Nanakuli always hits the ball well,” Waialua coach Jay Kaeo said. “You can’t give things away. Errors turn into runs, but we’ll be OK. We’ll jump right back in.”

The Bulldogs (3-1) visit McKinley on Thursday, while Nanakuli (4-1) takes another long drive, this time to Kalani. Both teams are looking up at 4-0 Kaiser in the OIA White.

Nanakuli had no problem with Waialua once it broke through in the fifth, scoring once more in the sixth, four straight times hitting the ball on the first pitch, and five times when the Golden Hawks batted around in the seventh. The biggest cheer came from Nanakuli pitcher Cheyanne Koko, but not for anything she did in the circle. She legged out a ground ball to shortstop and beat the throw to lead off the seventh for her first hit of the game and unleashed an audible ‘yes!’ She came around to score on a groundout by Daria Kawaauhau.

Koko has been battling back issues all season and can’t take a full swing. Gusman says it bothers her pitching, but it wasn’t evident on Tuesday. Koko struck out nine batters in six innings before giving way to Kawaiaea, who allowed an unearned run but struck out a pair of batters in the seventh. Koko threw 113 pitches before leaving, throwing first-pitch strikes to 15 of her 22 batters. Her only clean inning was her last. Koko took the tough-luck loss to Kaiser last week.

“Right now, she is not at her best,” Gusman said. “She usually has a little better velocity and a little better command than she had today. Today I thought we had enough defense to have her back, but we were watching her.”

At Waialua

Nanakuli (4-1)    100    041    5    —    11    15    1

Waialua (3-1)    200    000    2    —    2    8    6

Cheyanne Koko, Emma Kawaiaea (7) and Precious Paulo-Meyers. Sabrina Tolentino and Michaela Chalker. W—Koko.

L—Tolentino.

Leading hitters—Nan: Precious Paulo-Meyers 4-5, 2B, 3 RBI; Emma Kawaiaea 3-5, 3B, 4 RBI; Shaina Souza 2-5, 2 runs; Alexis Paulo-Meyers 2-5, RBI. Wail: Nicole Verdadero 2-4; Michaela Chalker 2-4; Amber Alejandro 2-4, RBI.

OIA Red East

Castle 12, Kahuku 2

The Knights took advantage of 11 hits and 10 walks to beat the Red Raiders.

At Kahuku

Castle (2-2)    400    111    5    —    12    11    2

Kahuku (1-2)    101    000    0    —    2    8    2

K. Morris and Kawai Hussey. Kulia Kaowili, Taina Aumua-Yamamoto (6), Kaowili (7) and Loke Mainaaupo-Eugenio.

Leading hitters—Cas: Darrien Dacosin 2-4; P. Matsuko 3b. Kah: Mainaaupo-Eugenio HR.