A day after a thrilling 13-inning road win, Leilehua will play host to Mililani Friday. ScoringLive photo illustration

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Talk about a quick turnaround.

Just about 20 hours after the final out was recorded in Thursday's thrilling 13-inning road victory over Pearl City, the Leilehua baseball team will get right back to it Friday when it plays host to Mililani.

First pitch between the Mules (5-5) and Trojans (6-3) is scheduled for 3 p.m. at Wahiawa Middle School Field.

The teams are separated by 1 1/2 games in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I West standings heading into the final stretch of the 12-game, double round-robin regular season.

Mililani slugged its way to a 10-5 win over Leilehua on its home field back on March 14.

However, the Mules have won three of their last five since then, including two straight. Both of those victories — over Aiea last Saturday and Thursday's win at Pearl City — were by a single run. It was a much-needed bounce back after a couple of tough road losses at Kapolei and Campbell last week.

The Mules were unable to protect leads of 2-0, 3-2 and 5-3 against the Chargers Thursday, but ultimately, Christian Ontai drove in the eventual-winning run in Mason Yamashiro with his one-out single in the top of the 13th inning. It was their first back-to-back win this season.

"It was a tough game for both sides," Leilehua coach Spencer Omalza said. "We got on top and it was kind of looking up for us and then a couple mishaps here and there and the next thing you know it's tied, but our guys learned a lot about ourselves today."

Omalza, in his first season at his alma mater, is hopeful that his team can parlay Thursday's marathon affair into another win against the Trojans.

"We want to build off of that going into the end of the regular season and coming into the playoffs, so hopefully we can ride this wave coming into (Friday) and finish up the season strong," Omalza said.

While Omalza was certainly elated with the victory Thursday, he is also well-aware of its implications for Friday's game.

"I think with the pitch-count rules it's going to factor in a lot, so as a staff we'll have to go look before the game and see who's at what pitch count, who's able to go and how much they are able to go, but we have a handful of guys that we're able to throw, we just need other guys to step up," Omalza said.

"Some guys that we thought were our guys in the beginning of the season but kind of fell off, right here is a chance for them to come back and be the pitchers that we know they can be."

Zane Staszkow, Hunter Sasaki, Kaleo Nishimoto and Mason Yamashiro are among the available arms, Omalza said.

"I think it's a good thing because I think it allows us to get some other pitchers going and in the playoffs especially, when you're playing three or four games in a week, we might play some extra-inning games here and there, so we might have to use some extra arms down the line," he said.

Meanwhile, Mililani will be relatively well-rested.

After a bye Wednesday, the Trojans posted an 8-3 win at Waipahu Wednesday to rebound from back-to-back losses at Campbell and Pearl City last week. They have been shut out in all three of their losses this season.

"We had two tough games where we faced two really good pitchers and that kind of gave us a chance to step back and re-evaluate where we're at as far as our passion to complete at that level and it gave us time to work on a few things as well as shake off those losses and get back into the mode of what we need to do," Mililani coach Mark Hirayama said.

After a 1-0 loss to Campbell to open the season back on Feb. 28, Hirayama's squad reeled off five consecutive wins.

The Trojans rallied with a six-run seventh inning in a 13-7 win at Aiea on March 17 and overcame a one-run deficit with a couple of late-inning runs in a 3-2 win over Kapolei four days later.

"I think the biggest game for us was probably the Aiea game, closely followed by the Kapolei game. We were down in those games and we were able to keep our composure and come back and win those ball games, but more than that it was the fact that we didn't panic and we knew what we needed to do. We played a full seven innings and we kept our composure and fought back," Hirayama said.

One area of concern that remains for Hirayama is defense. Mililani has committed an error in seven of its nine games for a total of 13 on the year.

"We've still got a lot of work to do," Hirayama said. "Just the little things that in order for us to compete with the better teams, we're going to have to clean up some of the little mistakes we make and on the mound we've got to continue to work on getting ahead of batters and hitting our spots and putting batters away when we're ahead."

One problem the Trojans do not have is a shortage of players.

"We go into it with thirty guys on our roster and we tell the guys that we need all thirty of those guys to step up and be ready to play. We can't rely on just one guy to carry us all the way through. It's just a matter of a different hero stepping up at the right time and taking advantage of the opportunity, so for us it's more about looking for everybody to contribute for us to be a complete team," Hirayama said.

Hirayama said he expects either Charles Winchester or Ryan Ancheta to get the start on the mound Friday.