Chinen pitches Mililani past Pearl City, 3-0

Mililani's defense shut out the chargers, 3-0. Steve Erler | Special to SL

MILILANI - Micah Chinen and Robert Baker collaborated on a two-hitter and Mililani beat Pearl City, 3-0, Saturday in Oahu Interscholastic Association Western Division baseball at the Trojans' park.

Chinen, a 5-foot-6, 150-pound right-hander, retired the first 10 batters of the game before walking Sam Prentice with one out in the fourth inning. He didn't allow a hit until two out in the fifth on Sanyo Lo's ground single inside the third-base line. But in the third, Brent Clymer hit a one-hop liner to right fielder Kaimana Souza-Paaluhi, who threw out Clymer at first.

"He wasn't overpowering, but he was able to throw strikes and get ahead," Mililani coach Mark Hirayama said. "I think he's kind of maturing as a pitcher, not trying to strike everybody out. As long as he stays ahead in the count, he'll be pretty effective for us."

Chinen threw only 53 pitches before giving way to Baker, who allowed a one out single to Matt Tsutomi in a scoreless seventh to earn the save. Despite the low pitch count (fewer than 10 pitches per inning), Hirayama said the short regular season forces him to find ways to get other pitchers work. "Otherwise, we'd only have two pitchers," he said.

Pearl City's Dane Kaneshiro pitched six innings, allowing three runs and eight hits without a walk, while striking out two.

"He's a competitor and we knew he was going to compete," Pearl City first-year coach Gavin Concepcion said. "He goes out there, keeps us in the ball game, pounds that strike zone and lets our defense make the plays for us."

At one stretch from the second and third innings, Chinen retired six batters on seven pitches.

"We knew Chinen was going to be a competitor out there," Concepcion said. "We knew he was going to pound the (strike) zone and give us pitches to hit. We didn't want to be passive. We wanted to be aggressive, go get a pitch early, have that mentality. That was our game plan. Just so happens a few balls didn't drop for us. That's the nature of the game."

Mililani got on the board in the bottom of the third inning. Jarrin Morikawa led off with a ground sinle to center, took second on Kainoa Wilson's sacrifice and scored on Connell's double to the left-center alley. Connell took third on CJ Ibara's bunt past the pitcher toward shortstop. With runners at the corners, Souza-Paaluhi hit a grounder to second baseman Chase Yoshida, who bobbled the ball, but recovered to throw out the batter at first, as Connell scored.

The Trojans added insurance in the fifth. Morikawa led off with a single to left. Wilson then his a liner to first baseman Christian Onomura, who dropped the ball. He tried to tag Morikawa returning to first and missed, but managed to tag the bag to retire the batter. Connell's hit-and-run single sent Morikawa to third. Connell attempted to steal second to draw a rundown play to allow Morikawa to steal home. But Morikawa was thrown out at home, as Connell took second, where he scored on Ibara's single to left to make it 3-0.

The game was all Chinen, who did have great defensive support. He needed seven pitches to strikeout Nicholas Au to start the game, but retired eight of the next nine hitters on the first pitch.

"I just kept throwing strikes and they were just hitting my fastballs, getting it to my 'D,' Chinen said. "I let by 'D' work and I knew they had my back the whole time. They made it very easy to execute plays."

Chinen said he was not aware he was throwing a no-hitter through four innings.

The Trojans (1-0) will host Radford on Wednesday, while the Chargers (1-1) draw a bye.

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at [email protected].