Kamehameha-Hawaii went to its closer early in its biggest tournament.
Kaika Nobriga pitched 6 2/3 innings and the Warriors beat Kailua 5-2 in the first round of the Wally Yonamine Foundation State Baseball Championships at Hans L’Orange Park on Wednesday.
Nobriga, the team’s primary reliever who was making just his second start of the season, worked into the seventh inning and struck out nine batters. He lost to Waiakea in his only other start this year.
“We just flipped it around a little bit to give us a chance to win,” Kamehameha-Hawaii coach Andy Correa said. “We know how good Kailua is and we knew he had it in him.We were saving him for a game like this.”
The Warriors got to Kailua starting pitcher Spencer Tavares in the second inning, following a leadoff walk by Nobriga with a single by Kamau Passi and a ringing double to right field by Eli Mercado. They loaded the bases on another walk and a hit by pitch before Brock Ayudan singled to right field to plate two more runs — one of his three hits in the game — and give Kamehameha-Hawaii a 5-0 advantage and knock Tavares out of the box.
Nobriga kept Kailua silent, holding them hitless until Masao Minami hit a harmless infield single in the fourth.
Don’t miss out on what’s happening!
Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It’s FREE!
Kailua finally caught up to Nobriga in the sixth inning, with Kalama Correa smashing a double off the fence in left field to plate a run and Minami following with a single to make it 5-2. Nobriga clutched up and struck out Janson Kamau on his 100th pitch. He came back out for the seventh inning and made it to 111 pitches until Kamau Passi took the ball and earned the save.
Passi gave up a double to Sage Tokoro to put runners on second and third but forced Devon Ishigo to pop harmlessly into short left to end the contest.
Kamehameha moves on to play OIA champion Mililani on Thursday at Hans L’Orange.
“We hit the fastball when we needed to,” Correa said. “All of these pitchers are good, it was fortunate timing to bunch the hits together because other than that we didn’t do much.”