First, I’d like to give a shoutout to some Red Raiders.
Thank you to the students of Mr. Gregory Anderson’s business principles an management class — Allyson Casasola, Anna Burkman, Pono Carbalho and Cassidy Yamauchi — that invited me to check out their presentation on their project “Red Raider Dome,” which is an Instagram account that covers Red Raiders athletics.
I’m not exactly the greatest social media guru, but I hope what little advice I gave was helpful. Best of luck to all of you.
Now, in other local sports news, a state tournament is coming here for a change.
The 2019 Wally Yonamine Foundation Baseball Championships-
Division II state tournament started Thursday at Vidinha Stadium.
This year’s Kauai Interscholastic Federation champion, Waimea High School, opened its state run Thursday night against Molokai of the Maui Interscholastic League.
Unfortunately, the final result of the Menehune’s first game against the Farmers wasn’t available by press time for the print newspaper, but be sure to checkout The Garden Island newspaper website and The Garden Island Sports on Facebook for updates and look out for coming TGI print editions for game stories.
I’ve been here at TGI for more than five years now, and this is the first time I get to cover a state tournament on Kauai.
I haven’t gotten the chance to firsthand cover a state tournament since 2014 when I was fortunate to get to fly to Oahu to cover Kapaa High School’s varsity football team’s semifinal game against Iolani.
That was good fun, so I’m stoked to see states action once again.
And I’d just like to say here, though I’m not biased toward any school, I can’t help but be happy for Waimea’s baseball team for finally breaking that league championship drought. The last time Waimea won a KIF baseball title was in 2012.
For as long as I’ve been here, up until this season, the Menehune had been third fiddle in the KIF.
During my tenure at TGI, I’ve seen Kauai High School win four straight KIF titles, and then Kapaa High School won last year.
Just as much as I like seeing good baseball games, I like to see parity within a league.
There’s nothing wrong about seeing a program dominant for a number of years, especially if it’s well-deserved, but I can’t help but feeling something for some other programs that are consistently at the bottom of the standings year after year.
To finally see Big Blue get their chance to celebrate on the baseball field, that was great.
So, best of luck to Waimea High and the rest of the field in the Division II state tournament. I’ll be seeing you out there at Vidinha Stadium.
Let’s wrap up 2019 with some style.
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Nick Celario, sports writer, can be reached at 245-0437 or ncelario@thegardenisland.com.
