Caspillo's walk-off single lifts Damien past Saint Francis

Damien's Kaeo Castaneda slides in to score a run against Saint Francis. Greg Yamamoto | SL

Damien came up clutch at the most opportune of times, rallying for two runs on three key base hits in the bottom of the seventh to earn a 3-2 win in walk-off fashion over Saint Francis in an afternoon contest at Mike Goeas Field.

"We've always known they've had it. Its been tough over the past year, we didn't have a good record against them (Saint Francis)," said Damien head coach Mike Wong. "The boys have been antsy to come out for this game, they held through, and they showed us today what they were made of."

Down to just two outs in the last of the seventh, starting pitcher Tristan Floretin helped his own cause at the plate, lacing a seeing-eye single past the shortstop to get the tying run aboard. The next batter, Kody Tamashiro, followed with an infield single to move Florentin into scoring position, and Florentin stole third base two batters later to put the tying run 90 feet from home plate.

That brought up Zachary Navas, who laced an offereing by Saint Francis' starter Tyler Apuna through the gap between first and second to drive home Florentin.

Dylan Flores then drew a walk on the next at-bat to load the bases up for Trevor Caspillo, who placed a bounding ball on a two-strike pitch to the Saints' shortstop, who gobbled the ball up but could not rocket the throw over to first in time, allowing Tamashiro to come home for the game-winner.

"First pitch, coach had been saying he throws strikes on his first pitch, so I took the first pitch and I missed," recalled Caspillo. "But I came in on the second pitch, and just clutched up."

Caspillo was hitless in his first three appearances on the afternoon, and was re-inserted for the deciding at-bat.

"He's definitely one of our clutch players," said Wong, "and I don't expect anything less of him than to come up with a hit there for us, and beat it out."

Saint Francis took the lead from the get-go in the first inning, as three of the first four Saints' batters registered base knocks, capped off by a Janson Kupau drive that brought in Sean Fernandez for the game's opening score.

The game remained a 1-0 contest until the bottom of the fourth, when the Monarchs' Kaeo Castaneda singled past the shortstop and was brought home on the next at-bat by Myles Okamura, who slammed a line drive double to the gap in left center to even the score at 1-all.

Shawn Baptiste reached first after being hit by a pitch to leadoff the sixth, then stole second before coming home on a Royce Torres single to vault the Saints back into the lead.

Damien looked to be on the ropes in the top of the seventh, when a pair of errors on consecutive Saint Francis batters put runners at first and second with just one out. But Florentin was able to induce a pop-out before retiring the side with a key strikeout, setting up the walk-off scenario.

Florentin came up big offensively (2-for-3, run, stolen base) but was perhaps a bigger factor on the mound, where he went the distance, allowing just 2 earned runs on 4 hits, striking out three and walking none.

"Tristan stepped up and was really big for us. He gave up that run early, but he came back, settled down, kept his pitch count really low, and got a lot of first pitch strikes, which was really important," commented Wong on Florentin.

The victory broke a two-game skid against the Saints going back to last year, and also marked first time the Monarchs have won back-to-back games dating back at least 3 seasons.

"Especially this season because we have a lot of seniors," said Florentin. "We've been through some rough seasons in the past but we know we have to clutch up when we need to."

Damien has twelve seniors on its roster.

"I think it will help us springboard us forward, showing that there were able to dig down deep when it counted," added Wong. "It really showed what this team is made of, and what they've worked so hard on this year thus far."

Next up for Damien is a battle against reigning Division II state champion Maryknoll at Central Oahu Regional Park on Saturday, March 15 at 9:00 a.m.

Reach Brien Ing at [email protected].