Justice Yamashita threw a four-hit shut out and Maryknoll scored both of its run in the seventh inning in a 2-0 win over No. 7 Saint Louis. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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HAWAII KAI — Justice Yamashita threw a four-hit shut out and Maryknoll scored both of its run in the seventh inning in a 2-0 win over No. 7 Saint Louis at Mike Goeas Field Tuesday afternoon.

The Spartans improved to 3-2 in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division I standings, while the Crusaders fell to 2-3.

Yamashita, a junior right-hander, registered first-pitch strikes to 15 of the 28 batters he faced. He threw 71 of his 113 total pitches for strikes. Yamashita walked four, struck out three and stranded seven Crusaders on base — all but one of them in scoring position.

"He's been really working on spotting his fastball and throwing breaking ball pitches in hitter's counts and that's the key in this league, you've got to be able to keep hitters off balance," Maryknoll coach Eric Kadooka said.

After busting out the bats in a 19-4 rout of Hanalani Saturday, the Spartans found themselves in a pitcher's duel with Yamashita going toe to toe with Crusaders' sophomore righty Richard Vidal III, who went the distance. He allowed six hits with six strikeouts and three walks and was tagged with the loss.

"Every game in the ILH is tough," said Kadooka, whose team has won its last two games since a 1-2 start. "We've been able to battle in each game — maybe in the later half of the Punahou game we didn't — but to the kids' credit they came out today."

The game remained scoreless through six innings, but Maryknoll recorded three of its six total hits in the top of the seventh.

Hailama Swartman led off the inning with a double to the left field corner before moving to third on pinch hitter Justin Shiromi's sacrifice bunt.

"Bunting is just part of what we do," Kadooka said. "We gotta move runners into scoring position, but it's based on just believing in pressure. I learned that a long time ago, that if you put pressure on the other team, then we just swing the bat after that, try to get some runs. Especially when Justice is throwing so well, we've just got to push across and couple runs and put the pressure on them."

The very next batter, Payton Grant, smacked a first-pitch offering from Vidal for a triple to the gap in right center, easily allowing Swartman to score the go-ahead run.

"I was just sitting fast ball and that's what I got. It was right down the middle, so I just squared it up," Grant said.

"That was a clutch hit. That helped us a lot," Yamashita said.

Two batters later, Grant came in to score on on a bunt squeeze by Maddux Miyasato.

"We put ourselves in some tough spots, (but) defensively we got out of it, Justice pitched really well throughout and then Hailama got that hit and Payton got that hit, so it's just something that we've been working on — swinging the bat, being a little more aggressive — but credit to them. They did it, they've just got to continue to do it," Kadooka said.

Saint Louis coach George Gusman lamented his team's lack of support for Vidal.

"Richie was great, we just need to give him some support offensively and even defensively," Gusman said. "They got one run and we knew what they were doing, (but) we just don't make the correct decision on the play. We had two choices: we could have got the guy out at home, or if we caught the ball in the air it's an easy double play. Either way we're looking for two and I'm not quite sure why we did that."

The Crusaders were unable to overcome a pair of base running blunders. Pinch runner Randen Kohagura was caught attempting to steal second for the third out of the home half of the fourth inning. Just one inning later, courtesy runner Patrick Coronas was picked off by Maryknoll catcher Tyler Quinn on a backdoor play at second base for the second out. Saint Louis left two runners in base, both of them in scoring position, in the frame.

"This was the second big game for us that base running came back to bite us in the butt. I'm not quite sure why, but there's really no excuse," said Gusman, whose team was shut out for the first time this year. "I just don't know where to go with that. I'm just not sure."

In any case, Yamashita was grateful for the help.

"That was a hell of a throw," Yamashita said of Quinn's throw down to second. "I'm proud of my team. They backed me up a lot out there."

Yamashita mixed speeds and locations effectively. He was at 92 pitches entering the bottom of the seventh. Micah Mashima led off the frame with a double, but Yamashita got Noah Tory to hit a come backer for the first out before striking out Jonah Zembik for the second out.

Yamashita's pitch count sat at 106 pitches before he faced leadoff batter Cole Kashimoto. After a seven-pitch at-bat, Yamashita got Kashimoto to fly out for the final out.

Had Kashimoto reached base, Kadooka would have been forced to remove Yamashita due to the maximum allotted pitch count of 110.

"I wasn't aware of that," Yamashita said. "At that point, I was probably just running on adrenaline."

Gusman praised the work of the Maryknoll ace.

"Justice was pretty good. We saw him against Kamehameha and he was really good against them. He was a little unlucky, guys didn't back him up at the end of the game, but otherwise he was doing a number on them as well," Gusman said. "Today, he mixed it up and anybody that can do that will be pretty successful."

Saint Louis played without starting catcher Caleb Lomavita, who was out with the flu.

It was the first of two regular-season meetings between the teams. They will close the ILH first round against each other on Apr. 11 at Ala Wai Field.

Saint Louis next plays No. 10 Kamehameha at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Ala Wai Field. Maryknoll will visit second-ranked Iolani Saturday at Noon.