ILH Baseball
No. 2 Saint Louis blanks No. 5 Punahou


   



Sat, Apr 8, 2017 @ [ 12:00 pm ]


FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Punahou 0 000000062
Saint Louis 0 0 1110X361

W: Dawson Yamaguchi    L: Kyle Uemura

STL: Matthew Wong 1-2 run; Dawson Yamaguchi 7.0 IP 0 ER 7 K
PUN: Noah Loughlin 2-3; Kyle Uemura 5.0 IP 2 ER


ALA WAI - Dawson Yamaguchi isn't going to overpower hitters, but he'll frustrate them.

The senior left-hander tossed his second consecutive shutout of the season to help No. 2 Saint Louis beat No. 5 Punahou, 3-0, Saturday in the second round of the Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division I double-elimination tournament at Ala Wai Community Park.

The Crusaders (12-4) plays Kamehameha (13-3) 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at Ala Wai in the championship bracket. The Buffanblu (11-6) will play Iolani (8-11) at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at Goeas Field in an elimination game.

Yamaguchi (4-1) scattered six hits, walked none and struck out a season-high seven. It was his third shutout of the season and he lowered his earned run average to 0.80 pitching in the toughest league in the state.

"First-pitch strikes," Punahou coach Keenan Sue said of Yamaguchi's effectiveness. "And not just first-pitch strikes, but off-speed first-pitch strikes. He threw a lot of curveballs. In any league, you do that, you're going to be successful."

Punahou losing pitcher Kyle Uemura (5-2) did well enough to win most days, but not against Yamaguchi. Uemura pitched five innings, allowing three runs, two earned, six hits and a walk. Riley Guieb pitched a perfect seventh inning to no avail.

Unlike his past shutout against Mid-Pacific, when Yamaguchi had no strikeouts, he fanned seven Buffanblu, breaking in a new pitch: a slider.

"Today, I was incorporating a new pitch into my arsenal," Yamaguchi said. "That helped with my two-strike approach on the counts. That was my new weapon I brought out."

His slider has a late sharp break. "It helps (against) the lefties, especially."

Ironically, it was the left-handed hitting Kyson Donahue who had two of the Buffanblu's six hits.

"I've known him since we were five-years old," Yamaguchi said. "We played Pinto, Mustang, Bronco and now high school. He kind of has an advantage over me because I throw him a lot of batting practice when it's winter break, summer break. We live two blocks away from each other. He lives across the street from Kahala park. I'm there and he goes, ‘Let's go hit BP.' When I see him come up in the box, he's kind of intimidating a little bit, especially because of his track record has been like hits all day off me."

Added Donahue: "I don't know why. I've always had confidence agianst him. It's always a battle against him. The competitiveness between us. I take a lot of confidence I take to at-bats."

But it is Yamaguchi's command of his breaking pitches that kept the Buffanblu's top of the order off-balanced.

"He knows how to work batters," said Donahue, nephew of Damien coach Timo Donahue. "I noticed at the top of (our) lineup, he was working backwards, all curveballs. The back of the lineup, it was all fastballs. He's very smart in that sense. He knows how to pitch. He knows how to work the batters, get them off-balanced."

In a bit of a twist, it was the bottom four batters of Punahou's line accounted for five of the team's six hits, though one was by pinch hitter Brent Shimoda.

"We don't have elite pitchers," Saint Louis coach George Gusman said. "But we have lots of good guys. They know how to pitch. They know how to battle. I think that's the most important thing. Dawson is the classic example. He just knows how to ptich. He's experienced and he just went out there and pounded the strike zone and we made plays behind him."

This is the kind of help Yamaguchi's defense provided:

Trailing 2-0 in the top of the fifth, the Buffanblu got back-to-back singles from Noah Loughlin and pinch hitter Shomoda. Both advanced a base on catcher Kai Perreira-Alquiza's pick-off throwing error that sailed into right field. But first baseman Aaron Renaud went a long way in foul territory behind first to retired Kai Terada-Herzer on a pop up to end the threat.

In the seventh, Andrew Matsueda led off with a single, but Matthew Nakamoto hit a grounder to shortstop Torres for a 6-4-3 double play. Still battling, Yamaguchi allowed successive singles to Donahue and Loughlin, but struck out Jerrick Nomura to end the game.

"That's a credit to our infield," Yamaguchi said of the double play. "They take at least 200 grounders a day, so that's great to see and they work hard."

The Crusaders got to Uemura in the bottom of the third inning. Perreira-Alquiza led off with a walk and an out later, his courtesy runner, Noah Tory, went to second on Makana Ontai's single to left. After Torres flied out to right, Dylan Pagente singled to right to score Tory before DJ Stephens flied out to center to end the inning.

Saint Louis got an unearned run in the fourth. Matthew Wong opened with a single to left that left fielder Cole Cabrera misplayed, allowing Wong to take third, where he scored on Renaud's sacrifice fly to center to make it 2-0. Charlie Lopez singled, but was erased when Perreira-Alquiza lined out to short and Lopez got doubled off first.

The Crusaders added insurance in the fifth. Hunter Peneueta led off with a single, took second on a balk, went to third when Ontan reached on a bunt single and scored Torres' squeeze. But Uemura got the next two batters to keep damage to a minimum.

The Buffanblu aren't getting too uptight for Tuesday's elimination game.

"Monday practice and Tuesday it's do-or-die. That's where you want to be as a player. What's more fun than having a win for go home?"



Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at [email protected].




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