KAPAA — The KIF baseball season started off Saturday with a doubleheader split. Waimea High School defeated Kapaa 6-2 in the first game but Kapaa bounced back and won 8-4 in the second game at the Warriors’ home field in
KAPAA — The KIF baseball season started off Saturday with a doubleheader split.
Waimea High School defeated Kapaa 6-2 in the first game but Kapaa bounced back and won 8-4 in the second game at the Warriors’ home field in Kapaa.
“The day started off pretty slow,” said Waimea head coach Larry Ephan about the first game. “Bats finally started to come alive … (We) found a way to work through it.”
In the third inning of the first game with the bases loaded, a three-run double by freshman left fielder Caleb Ephan put Waimea on top 4-1. It was the play that sealed the win for the Menehune.
“That was huge for us,” Ephan said. “We told him we were going to give him one good swing … Fortunately for us, it found the gap and we cleared the bases.”
Caleb said he knew he could make a play as soon as he saw the pitch.
“Once I saw it come out of the pitcher’s hand, I saw the release point,” he said. “Once everyone got on the bags, everybody started backing up each other.”
Kapaa head coach Bryan Aiwohi said he was surprised by the amount of errors, possibly from first game jitters, his team made in the game.
“I told my players that if you make errors, they’re going to take advantage of every one of them. And they did,” the Warriors coach said. “Runners got on from errors … infielders making errors really hurt.”
Aiwohi added his starting junior pitcher Keoki Planas played well and the game wasn’t lost because of him.
“He did his job. He got us fly balls, he got us ground balls,” he said about Planas. “We got to make the outs and that’s the bottom line.”
Waimea starting pitcher Brock Ephan said he started the game shaky and he didn’t settle down until the fourth inning.
“Couldn’t make any adjustments on the mound,” Brock said. “In the later innings, I just slowly started to get there and started to throw strikes again.”
Despte the win, Ephan also said his team still has room for improvement.
“A lot of mental mistakes in the first game,” the Menehune coach said. “We had a lot of ground balls. Just couldn’t execute at certain times. That’s what we need to do on our defensive side, make the routine plays.”
Strong defense helped Kapaa even thing up in the second game.
“We made less errors than they did and we started hitting the ball,” Aiwohi said.
Waimea will play a doubleheader against Kauai High School on Saturday at Hanapepe Stadium. The first game starts at 10 a.m.
Kapaa will play Kauai on Wednesday at Vidinha Stadium at 3:30 p.m.
“From a fan’s perspective, it’s going to be an awesome season. From a coach’s perspective, I don’t think there’s enough Advil,” Ephan said. “It’s going to be very competitive. All three team’s are equal.”
