LIHU‘E — The Waimea Menehune showed why it took the KIF championship last season on Saturday. With a balanced attack on both offense and solid pitching from BJ Freitas, the Menehune cruised to a 6-2 win over the Kaua‘i High
LIHU‘E — The Waimea Menehune showed why it took the KIF championship last season on Saturday. With a balanced attack on both offense and solid pitching from BJ Freitas, the Menehune cruised to a 6-2 win over the Kaua‘i High School Red Raiders in the first game of a doubleheader to open the 2013 season.
Freitas struck out seven Red Raiders and gave up two runs while walking two on his way to a complete game and earned his first win of the season.
Waimea’s Justin Silva came up big at the plate, going 2-for-4 with three RBIs, and Brock Ephan got on base twice with a single and a walk.
The turning point in the game came in the fifth inning with one out, Freitas was able to get aboard with a walk, which he then turned into a pair of stolen bases landing him at third base. Mikey Rita followed up with a walk of his own putting runners on first and third.
A Kaua‘i High error on an Ephan grounder allowed Freitas to score and Rita to move to third. Silva would then come up and drive in two runs, which broke open the game for the Menehune and put them up 6-0.
Kaua‘i would go on to score two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning off of Freitas but could never gain traction offensively.
The Red Raiders finished with two runs on six hits and committed four errors while leaving 10 runners on base.
It was the mistakes on defense and lack of ability to drive in runs that did Kaua‘i in. Micah Layosa added the only two RBIs for the Red Raiders and finished 1-for-4 with a double.
Nicholas Vallatini went 4 1/3 innings for Kaua‘i giving up four earned runs and five walks.
Game 2
Game two of the doubleheader began with more of the same with Waimea getting out to an early 3-0 lead.
Ephan again came through at the plate with an RBI single, and finished the game 1-for-3. Mikah Wisneski made his first appearance and also went 1-for-3 with an RBI.
Outside of the first inning, Kaua‘i’s Tyler Manibog pitched well for the Red Raiders and went all seven innings giving up three earned runs and six hits, but still left with the loss.
Mikey Rita was handed the ball for the start for Waimea and did not disappoint, as he was able to match Freitas’ feat of throwing a complete game. Rita finished with seven strikeouts, allowing two earned runs and 10 hits.
Head Coach Michael Rita wasn’t looking for either to go the entire game, but felt they could.
“We had BJ go the whole way, but if something happened we would have changed,” Rita said. “We wanted to see how long Mikey could go, and he ended up going the whole way. They did well.”
Although the offense did enough to come away with the win, Rita felt like they could have performed better.
“The offense didn’t really perform,” Rita said. “We did score runs, but like I have said, if we play good enough defense, we will score runs.”
On the flip side, Kaua‘i was able to scatter some hits but could never get the big hit with runners in scoring position.
“We hit. But we didn’t hit at the opportune times,” Head Coach Ryden Domingsel said. “We left a lot of runners in scoring position stranded, that was the biggest problem for us.”
The Red Raiders left 13 runners on base in the second game and left 10 on in the first, which highlighted Kaua‘i’s struggles at the plate.
Kaua‘i dropped to 0-2 after the losses, and will now prepare to take on Kapa‘a High School Warriors on Wednesday at Kapa‘a as it tries to get into the win column.
After the sweep, Waimea takes hold of the division at 2-0 and will play another doubleheader on Saturday against the Warriors at Hanapepe Stadium.
