Roosevelt's Maya Nakamura slides into home plate against Kailua in an OIA East Division I contest Saturday morning. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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_17032502_RoosKailuaSB_R12_SlidesHome_3485.jpg - Greg Yamamoto | SL

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MAKIKI — Roosevelt overcame an early four-run deficit to beat Kailua, 7-4 in an Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I East contest at Stevenson Middle School on Saturday.

The Rough Riders improve to 6-2 in the standings and moves into second place behind Moanalua (6-0) after Kaiser (5-2) fell to Farrington on the same morning, 17-16 in eight innings. The Surfriders had almost a week off after Castle forfeited, dropped to 5-3 and currently sit in fourth place.

Roosevelt avenged its season-opening loss to Kailua back on March 2.

"We found pitches we could hit. We lost to them in the first round and we felt we could win, but we made a lot of mistakes the last time. We fixed a lot of it and hitting-wise, we did better," said leadoff hitter Maya Nakamura.

Kailua was aggressive early on as Desiree Chang singled and advanced to third on an error. Kamaile Hanawahine brought her home with a single.

"That was our goal and plan was to come out aggressive and trying to maintain it. But we seemed to shut down after the fourth inning," said Kailua coach Tamara Kaluau.

The Surfriders added another run in the second after Jennika Odo walked and later scored on another Rough Rider error. Jaeda Cabunoc walked Hanawahine and Dyani Cummings-Lani scored her with a triple to left field and Gwendolyn Villanueva, who came in for Cummings as the courtesy runner, plated another run off of Harley Texeira's sacrifice fly for a 4-0 lead.

"He (coach Okamura) knows we can come back in tough situations. He tells us to keep fighting," Nakamura said on fighting back.

Kailua got all eight of their hits in the first three innings, but Roosevelt found a way to make the defensive adjustments despite committing five errors.

"We beat ourselves and it killed the rally for each time. We just never hit when we should've," said Kaluau.

The Rough Riders made it a new ball game in the third inning with three runs of their own. Hoku Ching hit a solo home run to right field. Nakamura singled and Kylie Kawamura reached on an error for a run and Kawamura scored off of Danika Stewart's RBI triple, but was tagged out at home.

"The ball bounced our way," said Roosevelt coach Clay Okamura.

Ching walked to lead off the fifth and doubles by Nakamura and Kawamura scored two runs to take the lead for the first time. Mika Emoto singled and Stewart reached on a fielder's choice to load the bases. The Surfriders made the pitching change as Cummings-Lani moved to first and Chang came in the circle for the last two innings. Kailua converted the double play and Megan Taguchi popped out to second to end the threat.

"Roosevelt made the adjustments and came back and forced us to change our pitcher to change the momentum. Desiree has started a couple games and relieved and did pretty well to keep them off balanced," said Kaluau.

"We had some breaks here and there," said Okamura.

Cabunoc came in for her only at-bat to lead off the top of the sixth with a single and moved over to second on Jadalee Takara's sacrifice bunt. Cabunoc scored off of a Surfrider error and Nakamura singled and moved to third. The ball got past Keani Yamamoto and she threw it to third to try and pick off Nakamura, but she evaded the tag near home plate to score Roosevelt's last run of the game.