Two days. Twelve innings. No hits.
Prior to this week, Chad Obara couldn’t recall being a part of a no-hitter as a player or in 15 years of coaching.
The Pearl City softball coach can now say he was in the dugout for back-to-back Chargers no-nos after Tyanna “Peanut Butter” Kaaialii followed up a combined no-hitter on Wednesday with a solo effort on Thursday in an 8-0 win over No. 5 Kaiser in the quarterfinals of the OIA Division I playoffs.
Kaaialii struck out the first seven batters she faced and finished with 14 to help the Chargers advance to the OIA semifinals and clinch a berth in the Division I state tournament.
“We’ve been working on her control a lot and so far so good,” Obara said. “Big improvements from the beginning to now.
“With the kind of stuff she has — she throws pretty hard, she’s got good movement — if she hits her spots, she’s tough.”
Kaaialii struck out six while throwing the first four innings of Pearl City’s 17-1 win over Moanalua on Wednesday, with Kristin Frost finishing up the no-hitter. She was spot-on again Thursday while allowing just one baserunner through 62⁄3 innings — and that batter reached on a passed ball on a swinging third strike in the first inning.
She ended up recording four strikeouts in the first inning and struck out the side in the second and fifth as well. She retired 19 straight before issuing consecutive walks with two out in the seventh and ended the game with her 14th strikeout of the afternoon in Hawaii Kai.
“I think a lot of it was I’m doing what I’ve been doing in practice,” Kaaialii said. “In the (regular) season I felt like I was missing that a little bit, I was kind of losing focus. But now being in the playoffs and just starting to pitch well, I think I’m definitely more focused and more confident in myself now.”
Pearl City will take its run of 12 innings without surrendering a hit into today’s 7 p.m. semifinal matchup with No. 3 and two-time defending OIA Division I champion Mililani. No. 1 Campbell and No. 4 Kapolei meet in the first semifinal at 5 p.m. at McKinley.
Kaiser, which went 12-0 in the OIA East, will play host to Roosevelt today in the fifth-place bracket with a state tournament berth at stake.
The Pearl City offense gave Kaaialii all the support she needed in the second inning when the Chargers strung together four consecutive hits and took the lead on Anasaria Cabato’s two-run double. They put the game away with a six-run sixth inning, sending 11 batters to the plate, with Darian Obara delivering a two-out, two-run single.
