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Kaimana Savaiinaea was the terminator Wednesday.
Thrust into a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the seventh inning, the 6-foot-3 Campbell reliever needed only nine pitches to strike out two Aiea batters to earn the save in the Sabers’ 4-1 victory over Na Alii.
“Kaimana is a junior and was a project last year,” said Campbell coach Glenn Flores, whose team is ranked No. 5 in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Top 10. “This year, he has showed us he’s a gamer. We just might have found our closer.”
The win on their home field elevated the Sabers to 8-1 in the OIA West and it also avenged an 8-3 loss to Aiea earlier in the season.
Trailing 4-0 starting the seventh, Na Alii (5-4) proceeded to load the bases against Campbell’s second of three pitchers, Dayton Robinson, who then issued a run-scoring walk to John Navarro to make it 4-1.
In came Savaiinaea, who ended the danger and the game. Campbell starting pitcher, lefty Ayzek Silva, threw six innings of scoreless ball while giving up five hits and one walk with nine strikeouts for the win.
“Coming in, even though I had a short ’pen, I was ready,” Savaiinaea said. “Loaded bags. One out. As a pitcher, you’ve got to be ready for any situation, so I did pretty good.”
On the hill for Na Alii, Navarro went the distance, finishing with a seven-hitter. He didn’t walk anybody and didn’t allow a hit or a run until the fourth inning.
In the fourth, the Sabers broke the scoreless tie on a sacrifice fly by Varen Sabino, who finished with two RBIs. In the fifth, Campbell upped the count to 2-0 when Shayden Sabangan doubled and scored on Ansley Isaacs-Acosta’s single.
“Sabino, he’s been our most consistent clutch hitter this year,” Flores said. “He puts the bat on the ball.”
In the sixth, Ikaika Ganancial’s double and Sabino’s RBI single keyed the Sabers’ two-run inning to make it 4-0.
Aside from stranding the bases loaded in the seventh, Aiea also left three on the bases in the opening inning and 10 throughout the game.
“We didn’t get the hit with runners on base and the end result is we came up short,” Na Alii coach Ryan Kato said. “It wasn’t our day. Ayzek pitched a really good ballgame. He got us out of our game plan and he was able to bear down when he needed to. And Campbell put the ball in play when they needed to. Typical Campbell baseball.”
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