Kamehameha's Head Coach Billy Pieper made his head coach debut yesterday in the Warriors first game of the season against Punahou. Evan Asato | SL

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Billy Pieper is back home at Kapalama Heights.

The 1996 graduate of Kamehameha Schools is the new baseball coach back at his alma mater and has been hard at work trying to lay the foundation for the Warriors' success on the diamond this year.

"It's been great," Pieper said after a season-opening tie against Punahou Tuesday. "I feel very fortunate to be able to lead this program and hopefully we're able to put a product on the field that we can proud of and young men into the real world that we can be proud of."

The Warriors weren't able to get Pieper a win in his head-coaching debut, but achieved the next best thing by rallying from a 5-2 deficit with three runs in the final two innings.

"Any time you come out you're going for the win, but what I told our boys is we don't measure ourselves whether we win or lose, we measure ourselves whether we achieve greatness and today, for parts of the game, I think we did achieve greatness coming back from 5-2," Pieper said. "Obviously, there's a lot of areas that we've got to work on, but we're going to take it one game at a time and control what we can control."

Third baseman Kodie Paiva, who batted 4 for 4 with a pair of doubles Tuesday, said he appreciates Pieper's candidness and overall coaching style.

"It's been good," Paiva said. "He's really talkative, keeps everything on a schedule and he really keeps us going and motivated to play."

Pieper replaced longtime Kamehameha coach Vern Ramie, who took over the program back in 1990 and compiled a career record of 318 wins, 163 losses and four ties. Ramie won five Interscholastic League of Honolulu titles and one state championship in 2003.

"Our goal really this season is to win the hearts and minds of these boys and then obviously to build a culture and character of doing our very best regardless of the situation," said Pieper, who played collegiately at UCLA and then professionally in the Kansas City Royals organization for three minor league seasons.

Pieper's challenge is to navigate the Warriors through the rigors of the ILH — arguably the toughest league statewide.

"It's a great league, every year it is, but I think this year in particular, there's quite a bit of parity amongst the teams," Pieper said. "I obviously have a lot of respect for the coaches and the players in the league and so I'm excited to get out there and battle with them because you know that every game you play in the ILH it's a tough one. There's no days off."

Since being named successor to Ramie back in September, Pieper's perspective on the job has already changed.

"I'm starting to realize how much more this job means to me," Pieper said. "When I first put in, it was kind of like 'OK, I'm going to put in, this job opportunity opened up,' and then when I met with the boys, spent time with the boys, went to practices, games and all the time spent with the boys made me realize how important this thing is for me because these kids are depending on us and I'd say it's a lot more than just baseball. I hope to not only put great baseball players on the field and hopefully get them to the next level if that's what they want to do, but also to develop great men, so that's kind of the passion that's driving this whole staff."

The Warriors, who play Saint Louis Thursday at Patsy T. Mink Central Oahu Regional Park, last qualified for the state tournament in 2012.

ScoringLive reporter Stacy Kaneshiro contributed to this report.