ILH Baseball
Warriors walk off against Crusaders, 5-4


  



Tue, Apr 11, 2017 @ [ 3:30 pm ]


FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Saint Louis 0 011101431
Kamehameha 1 0 00004583

W: Christian DeJesus    L: Kanoa Meredith

KSK: Athan Kuewa 2-4 run 2 rbi dbl; Hunter Breault 4.0 IP 1 ER 4 K
STL: Dylan Pagente 1-3 2 runs dbl; Chase Meilleur 6.0 IP 1 ER


ALA WAI — The No. 1 team in the land found a way to win Tuesday afternoon.

Kamehameha sent eight batters to the plate and scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to walk off with a 5-4 win over second-ranked Saint Louis before a crowd of about 100 fans at Ala Wai Community Park.

The win keeps the Warriors (14-3) undefeated in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu double-elimination tournament and puts them into Saturday's 10 a.m. game against the winner of Wednesday's loser's bracket matchup between Punahou and Saint Louis.

"It gives the kids a chance to rest, a chance to prepare for Saturday," Kamehameha coach Tom Perkins said. "It could have gone either way. I mean, Saint Louis played a hell of a game today. We didn't stop battling back. We just kept going through. The kids stuck it out and did what they needed to do."

Offensively, Kamehameha posted a hit in every inning, but was limited to a single run through six innings. All but one of the six runners left on base to end an inning were stranded in scoring position.

That all changed in the seventh.

Francis Gora led off the inning with a walk after working the count full. Chaesten Chon, the Warriors' ninth batter in the card, dropped a quick bunt down the third base line and beat out the throw before Kawai Takemura drew a walk to load the bases with no outs for Logan Salcedo.

Salcedo's ground ball to the right side of the infield brought Gora in to score and cut the Crusaders' lead to 4-2.

Kamehameha got within a run when Chon scored on Nakea Hanohano's sacrifice fly to centerfield for the second out and one batter later, Kuewa lined an 0-2 pitch from Kanoa Meredith — Saint Louis' second pitcher of the inning — back up the middle to score Takemura from second base for the tying run.

"I was hoping for a fastball or something like that, but the off speed came to me and I just sat on it and stayed up the middle," said Kuewa, a junior designated hitter.

Kuewa took second on the throw, which led to Wilhelm Cordes IV being intentionally walked to set-up a potential force out at second base. Instead, Meredith walked Dylan Salcedo on four pitches to again load the bases.

After Meredith's first pitch to Lii Pontes at the plate for a ball, he attempted a pick-off move to back door the base runner on second, but his throw sailed into centerfield and allowed Kuewa to score the winning run.

Kuewa said the Warriors refused to hang their heads after seeing Saint Louis pad its lead several times in the middle innings.

"We were just trying to stay confident and not think about the bad things that could happen," Kuewa said.

It was Kuewa's fourth multi-hit game this season and his third in Kamehameha's last five games. He is 9 for his last 18 at the plate and for the season, the 6-foot-1 Kuewa is batting .375 with 18 hits, 13 runs scored and 16 RBI in 48 at bats.

"He's been very confident," Perkins said. "He's been out go-to guy a lot this year and I've got to let him swing. The understanding is that as long as we hunt the fastball, look for a swing. He hit the ball hard each time he went up there today."

The seventh-inning rally gave Kamehameha starting pitcher Hunter Breault a no-decision. The hard-throwing right-hander and University of Oregon-signee allowed one hit over four innings with four strikeouts and three walks. He left the game with his team trailing, 2-1, before giving way to reliever Christian DeJesus, who picked up the win after holding Saint Louis to a pair of unearned runs on two hits in three innings of work.

"I thought Hunter threw well today and DeJesus did well against Saint Louis last time, so we made the change just wanting to keep us in it, but DeJesus came in and held his ground and did his job," Perkins said.

Kamehameha held an early 1-0 lead after Kuewa's two-out RBI-double off the left field fence to score Hanohano in the bottom of the first inning.

However, Saint Louis tied it in the top of the third inning when Kai Perreira-Alquiza led off with a single and scored on an error. It got the leadoff man aboard again in the fourth, when Aaron Renauld worked a walk off Breault before coming around to score on a wild pitch.

Dylan Pagente reached on a throwing error and eventually crossed the plate on a fielder's choice to extend the Crusaders' lead to 3-1 after five innings. They added an insurance run in the top of the seventh when Pagente doubled, stole third, then scored on an error on a fly ball to centerfield.

"During the game we tried to stay confident in every inning, every pitch and every at bat, and when Hunter is going down we have to pick him up on the offensive side, so it was just a team effort for us," Kuewa said.

Saint Louis was limited to just three hits and failed to capitalize on the quality start by senior ace Chase Meilleur, who gave up one run on six hits in six innings.

"We've seen a lot of Chase this year and he's done his job against us," Perkins said. "Even today his defense supported his fantastically."

Meredith was the losing pitcher. He faced six batters and allowed one run on a hit with two walks in 2/3 of an inning. He entered in relief of Daniel Stephens, who did not retire a batter after coming on to start the bottom of the seventh.

Stephens, the Crusaders' starting center fielder, sandwiched a pair of walks around a single and ended up being responsible for three runs. It was his first appearance on the mound this season.

"They brought (Stephens) in and we hadn't seen him and I just told the kids, 'You know what, we're down one (run) and we don't usually want to take one (pitch),' but we wanted to see what he had, so I think it was a good choice. It helped us, it helped the kids. They just came out and we had the right guys watching over us today."

The teams have split four meetings between them this season.

The Crusaders fell to 12-5 with the loss. They will face sixth-ranked Punahou (12-6) in an elimination game Wednesday, 3:30 p.m. at Ala Wai field.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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