Baldwin rallies, stuns Mililani, 4-3


Baldwin's Meime Kaina-Tianio scores the game-tying run ahead of the tag of Mililani's Kacie Oshiro. Brien Ing | SL
Sophomore Kylie-Rose Dickson's single on the right-field foul line scored freshman Skylynne Ellazar with the winning run from third with two out in the bottom of the seventh inning to rally Baldwin over Mililani, 4-3, Tuesday night in the opening round of the DataHouse Division I state softball tournament.

The Bears, trailing 3-0 through six innings, sent eight batters up in a four-run seventh to advance Wednesday's quarterfinal against second-seeded Mid-Pacific Institute at 5 p.m. at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium.

Trojans' starter Alysia Maddison scattered five hits through the first six innings before the Bears staged their comeback.

Kaitlin Awai led off with a single to short and pinch runner Julia Kinoshita took second on Tayler Shimizu's single to right-center. Sarah Abe reached on an error at first base to load the bases. Pinch hitter Kalena Duarte struck out, but Awai scored later when Alysha Sakamura grounded out to first to pull Baldwin to 3-1. With runners at second and third, Ellazar lined a single to right to score Shimizu, but the right fielder bobbled the ball, allowing courtesy runner Meime Kaina-Tianio to score the tying run.

Kaitlyn Watanabe reached on error by the second baseman to put runners at the corners, setting up Dickson's game-winning hit. Her liner landed on the foul line, which is fair territory.

"It was an outside pitch, so I just went with it," the right-handed hitting Dickson said. "At first, I thought it was going to be foul, but I saw the ump calling it fair, so I knew after that."

Dickson said Maddison had been pitching her outside in previous at-bats. "And that's kind of my weakness," said Dickson, who added she was looking for something away.

"We're young," Baldwin coach Steve Morton said. "The young girls, they did it."

Ironically, Bears' pitcher Watanabe had pitched a three-hitter and looked like she would be the hard-luck losing pitcher. She started the game by giving up a lead-off double to Toni Baysa, who took third on a sacrifice and scored on a wild pitch.

Joen Baker's two-out solo home run to left in the fourth made it 2-0.

The Trojans thought they added insurance with an unearned run in the sixth when Baysa led off with a single and stole second. An out later, she went to third when Maddison grounded out to second and scored when Kacie Oshiro reached safely when Dickson dropped an infield pop up to make it 3-0.


Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at [email protected].