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WAIPIO — Greyson Osbun and the Kamehameha Warriors have been here before.

Osbun allowed just one hit over five scoreless innings and combined with two other pitchers for a two-hitter to help Kamehameha successfully defend its Interscholastic League of Honolulu championship with a 4-0 win over Saint Louis Monday afternoon. 

A crowd of about 250 fans at Patsy T. Mink/Central Oahu Regional Park saw the Warriors (16-5), who leapfrogged the Crusaders (14-7) for the top spot in the ScoringLive Power Rankings over the weekend, cement their second straight league crown to earn the ILH's top seed in next week's Wally Yonamine Foundation/HHSAA Division I State Championships. 

It was the sixth meeting between the teams. Osbun has been the winning pitcher in three of Kamehameha's four victories over Saint Louis this spring. Furthermore, he recorded a complete-game win over the Crusaders in the ILH title game a year ago en route to the Warriors' first state crown in 20 years. 

"I was excited. I was in this position last year as well as a sophomore against the same team, so being able to come out here again and, you know, third straight game I'm pitching against them and being able to compete against these guys who are the best of the best in the ILH, so I was super excited and I was ready for today," said Osbun, a junior right-handed pitcher. 

Osbun threw 49 of his 83 total pitches for strikes and faced three more batters than the minimum. He struck out four batters and issued only one walk. The lone hit he surrendered was a single to left field off the bat of Kaili Kane to leadoff the bottom of the fourth inning. 

"Like he always does — I mean, that's what we expect from him," Warriors coach Daryl Kitagawa said of Osbun, who is now 6-0 on the year with a 1.12 earned run average. 

"He throws a lot of strikes, pounds the zone, (used a) three-, four-pitch mix at times and he's just a bulldog on the mound, so I'm glad he's on our club. I'm really, really happy for him," Kitagawa added. 

Osbun's teammates spotted him a one-run lead before he threw a pitch Monday. Jayden Montero led off the game by drawing a walk off Saint Louis starter Tanner Chun. Montero then stole second base and moved to third via a Nalu Grace sacrifice bunt. Jace Souza followed with a single into left field to score Montero for the game's first run. 

Kitagawa said the execution with which his top of the lineup manufactured the run was a good sign early on. 

"We had to. I mean we've struggled at times with the bat. I'm mean, we're very capable with it, but we gotta do what we gotta do: we run, steal bases, we bunt ‘em when we can — force action, I guess," Kitagawa said. 

The Crusaders got their leadoff man aboard in the bottom of the first, however, when Chun was hit by an Osbun offering five pitches into his at-bat. Chun's aggressiveness on the base paths worked against him a few pitches later when catcher Bruce Boucher fired a throw to shortstop Montero covering second base in time to catch Chun stealing. 

"That was huge," Osbun pointed out. "Tanner is a great runner and if he gets into scoring position they got multiple guys who can drive him in, so Bruce being able to throw him out was huge and I think it really pumped me out to get out of the inning."

Kamehameha doubled its lead in the top of the second, when No. 9 batter Kaulana Quinlan got aboard with a two-out single through the right side of the infield. Quinlan stole second base and eventually scored on a wild pitch by Chun, who also beaned a pair of Warriors in the frame before he was lifted for reliever Shannon Fee. 

The Warriors got a triple from Matthew Zarriello to leadoff the top of the third. Zarriello came home on a single off the bat of Osbun, who poked an outside pitch from Fee to the opposite (right) field. 

"I was sitting curveball the whole way. They went two-oh slider, so I didn't think they would come back with a fastball so I was sitting curveball, saw it up and I just tried to get it out of the infielder, tried to get the run in," Osbun described. 

Osbun ran into a bit of trouble in the bottom half of the inning, when the Crusaders put two runners on base with two outs. A wild pitch by Osbun moved both runners into scoring position, but he induced a ground ball off the bat of Kolby Gushiken that he fielded cleanly and threw over to first baseman Dillon Andres to get out of the jam. 

After Kane led off the Saint Louis fourth with his single to left, he moved into scoring position on an Osbun wild pitch. Isaiah Streadbeck came in to pinch run for Kane and promptly stole third to put himself 90 feet from scoring his team's first run, but Osbun buckled down and struck out clean-up hitter Sean Yamaguchi for out No. 1. He then got Mana Heffernan to strike out looking after a bit of a hesitation on his leg kick prior to the 1-2 slider over the outer half of the plate. 

"I've been working on it throughout the season. I've done it before to these guys, so I think just bringing it out in bigger situations, messing with (their) timing and kind of get them thinking about, ‘what am I gonna do here,' really helps with just getting out of situations like that where runners are in scoring position and they've got good hitters up," Osbun said. 

However, Osbun wasn't out of the woods just yet. Streadbeck was still at third base when Osbun got the next batter, Laakea Correa, to line out to Grace who made a diving catch in left field for the final out of the inning. 

"I definitely thought that that ball was getting down," Osbun admitted. "I just kind of threw a get-me-over fastball, not thinking he would swing and he hit it pretty well to left. It was sinking pretty hard and I mean, Nalu's been doing that all year so him getting that diving catch and getting me out of that inning without (giving up) a run was huge."

Osbun set the Crusaders down in order in the fifth before he gave way to Alakai Kiakona. The lefty reliever walked one and struck out a batter in his one inning of work and Elai Iwanaga got the final three outs after he gave up a single by Heffernan to lead off the bottom of the seventh. 

"Big, big performance by our team and big performance by our three pitchers today so hats off to them. Hats off to all the kids on our team," Kitagawa said. 

Montero drew three of Kamehameha's five walks on the day and scored twice. Souza tallied three stolen bases and Grace put down a pair of sac bunts in the win. 

Chun took the loss for the Crusaders. He was unable to get out of the second inning and gave up two runs on two hits. Chun walked three batters, struck out two, beaned a couple and threw 46 pitches. 

Fee struck out six, walked two and allowed two runs (one earned) on two hits in 5 1/3 innings of relief. 

In Osbun's first win over Saint Louis earlier this season on Apr. 18, he was one out away from a no-hitter in a primetime game that was televised live statewide. 

"They've seen me before so I knew I had to mix it up and a little bit better, especially in different conditions where we're not under the lights and batters can see the ball a lot better, so that game I was super fastball and slider heavy, today I tried to mix in the change-up (but) nothing was really feeling good for me today, but just being able to get out of big situations was huge for me and just pounding the zone and staying in it the whole way through," Osbun said. 

After finishing in a four-way tie for first at the conclusion of the ILH's first round of play (double round robin), the Warriors had to go through the league's second round (double-elimination tournament) to claim their second straight league crown. 

"It feels great. Obviously it took more work than we wanted it to. We wanted to finish off quick, but we played good teams along the way and just being able to actually finish it out is huge no matter what road we took, so I'm excited; I'm pumped for states," Osbun expressed. 

Kamehameha went 6-1 since the end of the first round and has won a season-best five consecutive games entering next week's state tournament. 

"I'm very proud of the boys and the baseball program all levels and for me, I'm just really grateful, humbled to be their leader being their head coach. It's a really hard our league — it's tough — a lot of good teams, a lot of good players, a lot of good coaches, so it's a challenge every day but to come out on top the way we did — stumbling here and there — and to pull through at the end, I'm very, very proud of our kids," Kitagawa said. 

Along with Kamehameha, league runner-up Saint Louis and third-place finisher Iolani, will represent the ILH in the 12-team state tournament, which gets underway next Tuesday at Les Murakami Stadium. 

The Crusaders were seeking their first league title since they captured back-to-back ILH championships in 2021 and 2022.