Aholelei, Cougars thwart third-ranked Trojans

Shea Higa and Primrose Aholelei celebrate after recording an out for the Kaiser Cougars. Brien Ing | SL

Primrose Aholelei batted 2 for 3 with an RBI to back her own complete-game pitching effort to lead Kaiser to a 3-2 quarterfinal win over No. 3 Mililani Thursday afternoon.

The Cougars, the No. 2 seed out of the Eastern Division, improved to 9-4 with the win and clinched a spot in the DataHouse Division I State Championships. They will meet West No. 1 seed Campbell, the top-ranked team in the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Power Rankings, in the 7 p.m. semifinal at McKinley Friday.

The West third-seeded Trojans fell to 8-6 with the loss and will host Kapolei at 3 p.m. Friday in a fifth-place semifinal. It was their second game of the day. After Wednesday's first-round game against Kalani was postponed due to rain, the teams played at 11 a.m. Thursday at Mililani. After the conclusion of that game — which the Trojans won by a score of 8-3 — they made the commute over to Hawaii Kai for the quarterfinal game against Kaiser.

Aholelei, a senior pitcher, allowed a season-high 10 hits and walked four batters, against one strikeout, to improve her record to 9-4 on the year.

Jordyn Tagudan went 1 for 2 with a walk and drove in a pair of runs and Alexis Oshiro drew a pair of walks in the win.

Jordan Okumura (2 for 3, walk, 2 runs), Tierra Dumlao (2 for 3, double, walk), Kobe Brown (2 for 3, walk, RBI) and Cherise Mori (2 for 4) each paired hits for Mililani.

Joie Baker went the distance for the Trojans and fell to 3-4 on the season. She gave up five hits and four walks with seven striekouts in six innings of work.

Kaiser scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning and added a single run in the second. Mililani got on the board in the fifth inning and made it a one-run game in the top of the seventh, but came no closer.

The first semifinal at McKinley Friday will feature No. 4 Leilehua (8-5) taking on No. 5 Waianae (9-5) at 5 p.m.

The four semifinalists along with the fifth-place team out of the OIA qualify for the D1 state tournament, which takes place May 1-4 at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium. The sixth-place finisher will meet the Big Island Interscholastic Federation runner-up in a play-in game next Wednesday, 3 p.m. at Kealakehe.