Castle's Paige Matsuki makes a throw to first against Waipahu. Johnny Wilson | Special to SL

Purchase image 1 of 1

KANEOHE — For the first time in Asia Igafo's four-year varsity career, her team is moving on in the playoffs.

Igafo, a senior pitcher, scattered eight hits in a complete-game effort and Ariel Hendricks drove in a pair of runs to lift Castle to a 4-1 win over visiting Waipahu in a first-round game of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I softball tournament Tuesday afternoon.

The Knights, who are the third seed out of the Eastern Division, extended their winning streak to three games to improve to 8-5 and advanced to Wednesday's quarterfinal round, where they will play fourth-ranked Mililani with a state-tournament berth on the line.

"It feels great that we finally won a playoff game for the first time," Igafo said. "I'm really happy for our team and I'm excited because just to get past the first round is really good."

It was only fitting that Castle avenged a first-round OIA tournament loss four years ago to Waipahu.

"It's been four years since we won a playoff game," Knights' coach Jon Berinobis said. "These girls — my seniors now — were freshmen when we played (Waipahu) in the first round and we got 10-run ruled in that one, so they remembered and now they're seniors so they came to play today and hopefully we can carry that out the rest of the week."

This time around, Igafo kept the Marauders' bats at bay and relied the steady play of her defense — which play error-free ball — to help bail her out of several jams. She ended up stranding eight base runners, including six in scoring position.

"The defense played great," Berinobis said. "We always try to keep the errors down, but today in a couple of innings they made some double plays and those were big plays that got us some big outs and that always helps. It helps boost our pitching and it takes the pressure off by making plays like that."

Igafo allowed a leadoff single by Orepa Fuiava to start the top of the fifth inning, but got the next batter, Rayna Abunag, to ground back to her for a 1-6-3 double play. One inning later, Igafo gave her a single to Alyssa Lene down the third base line that scored Tiffani Domingsil from second. With runners at first and second and no outs, Igafo got Ulalia Soa to ground out to Kaylee Ishii at third, who touched the bag to get the lead runner on the force play and threw to Kacie Lam at first to complete the double play.

"I'm happy my defense backed me up," Igafo said. "They always got my back and having those two double plays really helped us out, because if not, I think they would have scored more."

Castle got an early cushion when Darrien Dacosin drove in Paige Matsuki on a ground ball out in the bottom of the first.

"I think that started all of our hitting and got us up to knowing that we can actually hit off of her and getting us in the right frame of mind to hit off of her," said Hendricks.

Hendricks, who drew the count full before reaching on an error in her first plate appearance, led off the fifth inning with an inside-the-park home run. She lined the first pitch she saw down the right field line and raced around the bases to beat the throw home.

"At first I wanted to see how fast she was and then I saw that she threw strikes a lot for first pitches, so I just swung at it," said Hendricks, who drove in another run in the sixth inning. "It looked good."

Berinobis praised Hendricks, another senior, for coming through at the plate.

"That was a big clutch hit," Berinobis said of the home run. "She's been close and today she came through with a big hit and then she drove in that other run by just doing what we tell them: ‘Get it to that (right) side so we can score the run,' and she did just that, so she was big time coming through for us offensively."

The Knights added a pair of insurance runs in the sixth. They recorded five hits off of Marauders' starting pitcher, Shevan DeFreitas, who struck out four and walked none in the loss.

Waipahu had a chance in the top of the seventh when it got its first two batters aboard and had the tying run at the plate in DeFreitas, who singled in her first at-bat and walked the next two times, but she ended up popping up to Igafo to end the game.

"(Igafo) was very careful pitching to (DeFreitas)," Berinobis said. "They've got some good sticks like DeFreitas. She launched one (foul) earlier and I've seen her hit in the past and this season, so we tried to keep her off balance, keep her guessing. That was our plan and it worked, so we can see another day."

Berinobis used a mound visit after the first two Marauders' reached base in the inning, but ultimately stuck with Igafo, who notched her second complete game of the season.

"I think she did a good job on the mound today," Berinobis said. "She had control of her pitches, so that made a difference. As long as she's got command of her pitches, we can go ahead and use different stuff and that helped us big time today. Waipahu, I know they got some big bats. I've seen them come back and hit and they hit some shots, but trying to keep them off balanced was the secret."

The West sixth-seeded Marauders, who fell to 2-11, saw their season come to a close with the loss.

Castle visits West runner-up Mililani in a 3 p.m. quarterfinal Wednesday.