Radford's Richard Akana throws a pitch to plate against Farrington in an OIA Division II contest Saturday. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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KALIHI - Less than 24 hours after losing its hold of first place in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division II standings, Radford regained the lead with a 4-3 win against Farrington Saturday at Joey DeSa Field.

On Friday, the Rams (9-1) lost to Waianae (7-2), which took a very temporary half-game lead on Radford. But Saturday, the Seariders lost to fourth-place Kaimuki (5-4) to put Radford back in the driver's seat for the top seed for the six-team OIA tournament, which opens in two weeks.

"I like the resilience," Radford coach Jacob Sur said. "Yesterday, we had a tough loss and guy came back. Same thing, we hit the ball hard but right at guys. Against Waianae, we were smoking the ball, but guys were making plays. Today, same thing, but things were dropping (in) a little."

The loss hurt the third-place Governors (7-3), who could have pulled into a tie for first with Radford with a victory. Waianae still has a make-up game against Kaimuki.

After allowing a second-inning run the put Farrington ahead, 1-0, Akana (4-0) settled down, retiring seven in a row at one juncture. He scattered four hits, three coming in the inning Farrington's scored, He walked thre and struck out six. Jack Dillon moved in from shortstop to pitch the seventh, allowing an RBI triple, but was victimized by two errors that allowed Farrington to pull to within one with the tying run at third. But Dillon retired Shayden Fujimoto on a fly to right to end the game and notch his first save.

"He got ahead a lot," Sur said of Akana's outing. "At the end he was kind of falling behind but he came back a lot with his curveball, too. His curveball was on today."

It rained all game when the teams met last Saturday in a game Radford won, 6-3, at the Donald Kimura Field. This time, it was overcast all day, but the rain held up. Because of the rain all week, the grass at DeSa seemed a little thicker. Infielders expecting faster hops got slower ones and rushed some of their throws that might have accounted for the combined five errors in the game.

Farrington starting pitcher Trey Kaawa had allowed only two base runners through three scoreless innings, but could not escape a jam in the fourth.

Akana reached on a throwing error by third baseman Reese Shioji and courtesy runner Daniel May took second on Damon Nelson's bloop single to right-center. Shane Vogt walked to load the bases, but Kaawa struck out Isaac Grant. Carter Ogino followed with a ground single to right to score May with the tying run and reload the bases. Gavin Buchanan squeezed home Nelson and reached safely on the fielder's choice. Vogt scored whne Shioji's throw to the plate got away from catcher Kamaehu Sanchez to make it 3-1. That got Kaawa out of the game for Treven Isobe, who retired the next to batters.

Again, the thick grass might have had an effect on the bounce to third baseman Shioji on the bunt, as he had to rush his throw home. Worse is Nelson did not have a good jump toward home and might have been thrown out easily.

"We were lucky we got out of it with only (three) runs," Farrington coach Eric Tokunaga said. "It was bases loaded, nobody out so in that sense we improved. They could've blown us out; they could've bust the game open."

It stayed 3-1 until the top of the sixth, when Radford got the proverbial insurance run off of Isobe on Michael Gauna's two out, RBI single. That proved to be the difference, as Farrington plated two unearned in the bottom of the seventh against Dillon. Two players who reached on errors by Akana, who moved to shortstop, and third baseman Matthew Lukins, eventually scored. The first on Cisqo Sagucio's triple and the other on a wild pitch before Fujimoto flied out to end the game.

The Rams had little time to dwell on their first loss of the season Friday to Waianae.

"I was still thinking about it," admitted Akana. "But coach said, ‘It's in the past, so forget about it.' We're eventually going to face (the Seariders) in the future."

Both teams close out the regular season with 3 p.m. games Wednesday. The Governors will host Nanakuli and the Rams will host Kaimuki. Waianae will play McKinley on that day with a make-up against Kaimuki to be determined.

The top six teams from D2 advances to the OIA tournament. The top two teams will draw first-round byes, while the thjird-place teams meet the sixth-place team and the fourth- and fifth-place teams meet in the first round.