With an inside-the-park, walk-off home run, Kanilehua Pitoy had the final say for Roosevelt on Tuesday at the Stevenson Middle School softball field.

Having started 0-for-3, Pitoy, a sophomore catcher, led off the bottom of the seventh with a line drive to the gap in right center and sped around the bases for a 2-1 OIA East victory over Kaiser.

“Kani is pretty clutch,” Rough Riders coach Kristin Fujii-Dias said. “In her previous at-bats, she was just missing the ball. I told her to keep swinging and don’t pressure out.”

The win kept the third-ranked Rough Riders unbeaten at 6-0, leaving the Cougars two games behind at 4-2.

“Kaiser is one of the top teams, so we were expecting their ‘A’ game and they did bring it,” Fujii-Dias said. “They came back. I don’t want to say I was scared, but I was a little nervous. But you know what? I have faith in these girls. They never gave up and kept fighting.”

The winning hit put Pitoy’s batterymate, right-hander Jaeda Cabunoc, in the victory column with a two-hitter. Cabunoc struck out nine, which was one fewer than the 10 spun by Kaiser’s Primrose Aholelei in the loss.

“She fell behind batters, but she reset, refocused and came back strong,” Fujii-Dias said about Cabunoc. “She finished strong on every batter.”

It was an offspeed pitch by Aholelei that led to the Cougars’ early 1-0 hole. With two strikes, Roosevelt’s Tiani Sniffen tripled to left-center to lead off the fourth. The next batter, Kenna Higa, brought her home with a single to right.

An inning earlier, Kaiser center fielder Lauryn Wee made an improbable, over-the-shoulder, running grab of a smash by the Rough Riders’ Maya Nakamura to keep the game scoreless.

“I was shocked,” Cougars catcher Precious Aholelei, Primrose’s twin who had both of Kaiser’s hits, said about Wee’s grab. “I didn’t know she would be able to get it. But the way she tracked it was really good.”

Primrose Aholelei pitched out of a sixth-inning, bases-loaded jam, giving Roosevelt’s defense a chance to end it in the top of the seventh. Instead of getting to the promised land quickly, the Rough Riders unraveled a bit, due in part to two errors.

With two out and the bases loaded, Primrose Aholelei smashed a grounder that went off the glove of Rough Riders third baseman Riley Doi and into left field, sending Shea Higa home for a 1-all tie. On the play, however, Tehani Aquino-Keola rounded third a bit too much and was pegged out by Pitoy to end the inning.

It was just a few minutes later that Pitoy ended the game, starting the bottom of the seventh with the winning blast.

“I’m proud of our team and props to Kaiser for giving us a good game,” Pitoy said.

The Cougars plan on giving Roosevelt another good game. Or better.

“We’ll get them back when we see them at our house (April 9),” Kaiser coach Mitchell Matsumoto said. “We’re a good team. We just couldn’t get the runs in. It’s pretty weird, yeah? Your pitcher has 10 strikeouts and you still lose.”