Junior Kiara Peterson stepped up to the plate — and the rubber — to help Pac-Five rally past top-seeded Nanakuli for the D2 state softball title. Brien Ing | SL

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Call it a passing of the torch, if you will, for the Pac-Five softball team.  

In Saturday's back-and-forth Division II state softball final, a junior, Kiara Peterson, stepped up to the plate — and the rubber — to help her senior teammates go out in style with a 6-4 win over three-time defending champion Nanakuli.

The 5-foot-7 Peterson batted in the five-hole and started the game as the designated hitter. In the third inning she moved into the pitching circle in relief of starter Megan Yoshioka and allowed only one (unearned) run over 4 2/3 innings of work to get the win. She scattered six hits and a walk and stranded five Nanakuli base runners — all in the final three innings.

Peterson logged 34 innings in the regular season with a 2-3 record, but had not pitched since Apr. 20, when she allowed seven runs (five earned) on eight hits in 3 1/3 innings in a loss to Punahou.

But there was no need to shake any rust off for Peterson Saturday night.

"I think Kiara did amazing," said shortstop Karley Ann Yoshioka, who scored each of the three times she reached base, including a solo homer to lead off the bottom of the first. "She stuck with her composure. She hasn't pitched the last two games, but she came in and played her best and that's all we needed."

Peterson said Pac-Five coach Cecil Hasegawa kept it simple for her when he handed her the ball.

"When I came in for relief, my coach told me just to stay calm and keep my cool and just everything would be fine," Peterson said. "He said don't stress out and just play the game."

Clearly, Hasegawa's advice resounded with Peterson, who got clean-up hitter Mahina Piilani to ground into an inning-ending double play in the third.

She helped her own cause in the bottom of the fourth. After Nanakuli opted to intentionally walk clean-up hitter Brazzlyn Tovio-Asato — who crushed a solo homer in the third inning — Peterson lined a single into right field that plated the tying and go-ahead runs.

"Seeing that she came through after I got walked was so amazing," Tovio-Asato said. "She just clutched up in front of everyone and I feel like Nanakuli didn't think that she could do it, but I believed in her all the way and she proved herself today."

The Wolfpack committed a pair of errors in the fifth inning — the first of which allowed a Nanakuli run to cut their lead to a run at 5-4 — but Peterson left two runners aboard to end the threat.

Peterson was backed up big time by her defense in the sixth inning, when Nanakuli loaded the bases with no outs, only to see Karley Ann Yoshioka turn a double play and Peterson get the third out on a pop out to get out of it unscathed.

The seventh inning was another nail-biter.

Kaila Burnett led off the inning with a single up the middle, but was back doored off third base for the second out by catcher Shazzareigh Nakoa-Chung, who also gunned down two would-be base stealers earlier in the game and recorded the final out of the game on a popup.

Peterson credited the four seniors — Karley Ann Yoshioka, Nakoa-Chung, Tovio-Asato and Cameron Peterson — for guiding the Wolfpack this year.

"They mean a lot," Peterson said. They really wanted this because it was their last year and we just wanted to win it for them."

Hasegawa, who coached Pac-Five to back-to-back state titles in 2010 and 2011, reaffirmed Peterson's stance.

"The seniors did real great; we had good leadership from this this year," Hasegawa said. "This (championship) is a lot sweeter, because this team really struggled through the whole season until now. They put it together and sometimes I kind of wondered what team was going to show up, but they showed up today. This whole tournament they did real, real well.

Peterson is one of six juniors on the team, including Megan Yoshioka, whose role as staff ace all season shouldn't be understated, Hasegawa said.

"Kiara did real well and because of this being a big game, Kiara got a lot of credit, but Megan got us here — she won the first two (state tournament) games," Hasegawa said.

It was the fifth state championship for Pac-Five, which finished with a record of 10-6-1 on the season.