Mortensen's sac fly in seventh leads Baldwin in first-round play

Greg Yamamoto | SL

MANOA - Pinch hitter Douglas Mortensen's sacrifice fly scored the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh inning and No. 4 Baldwin squeaked by Moanalua, 5-4, Tuesday in the first game of the first round of the Wally Yonamine Foundation Division I state baseball tournament at Les Murakami Stadium.

The Bears (13-3) will play fourth-seeded Hilo at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the quarterfinals.

Baldwin feels fortunate to pull this one out after a strong start.

"We got some breaks there in the last inning," Baldwin coach Craig Okita said. "We gave the lead away, lose the momentum. We stranded a bunch of runners again today; we've done that all season long. We're just fortunate to get that run in the end and hold them off.

"Moanalua is always scrappy. I tell our guys ‘This game is going to get close, so we have to put the pressure on. They earned that one inning when they got three hits."

With the game tied at 4, the Bears opened the seventh with a double from Kaden Anderson off of reliever Daklota Pagent, who had thrown four scoreless innings entering the frame. Kade Fujioka's ground out to the pitcher moved Anderson to third before Pagente hit Isaac Imamura and Jevon Raboy to load the bases to set up Mortensen's sacrifice fly to left. Laakea Ko also was hit by a pitch to reload the bases to chase Pagente. Kaiden Sonoda-Fukumoto came in and struck out Isaiah Chaves to end the inning.

Isaac Imamura came in from second base to pitch a scoreless bottom of the seventh to save it for the Bears' Kip Watanabe, who pitched a scoreless inning of relief for the win.

Moanalua found itself in a hole early when the Bears scored twice in the first and second innings to take a 4-0 lead behind starting pitcher Jayden Perry-Waikiki, a freshman. He had no-hit Moanalua through three innings, but was tagged for three runs in the fourth on John Ganske's three-run triple to pull Moanalua to 4-3. Moanalua would tie the game at 4 in the fifth on Dawson Sugawa's RBI single off Perry-Waikiki, who lasted five innings.

Okita said the experience of playing in a state tournament will only help the freshman Perry-Waikiki.

"He's been very reliable for us," Okita said of Perry-Waikiki, who threw a no-hitter earlier this season. "He didn't have his slider today. It was just that one inning. I'm glad he got to experience this, we pulled it out in the end, so hopefully, he can grow from that."

Moanalua (10-7) plays in a consolation semifinal Thursday at Radford.

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at [email protected].