Darkness prevails as Punahou, Kamehameha play to tie in ILH baseball

Four teams started the final week of the ILH baseball regular season within a half-game of a very important second-place finish.

Nothing changed Tuesday after Punahou and Kamehameha played to a 6-6 tie in eight innings that was called due to darkness at Ala Wai Field.

Punahou’s Brendon Sato singled home the tying run with two outs in the top of the seventh inning to tie the game for the final time after Kamehameha’s Aydan Lobetos delivered a two-run double with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning to give the Warriors a 6-4 lead.

Kamehameha loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the eighth but couldn’t knock in the winning run as Punahou ace Cade Terada-Herzer got a strikeout and a flyout to finish off the second tie of the season in the ILH.

Maryknoll (7-4-1), which lost to Mid-Pacific on Tuesday to fall into a three-way tie in the loss column with the Owls (8-4) and the Buffanblu (7-4-1), played league-leading Saint Louis to a 2-2 tie last month.

“It guarantees you at least a playoff, so yeah, it’s important,” Punahou coach Keenan Sue said of the second-place spot. “These last three games are so important that we’re kind of treating each of these games as a state-tournament game, which is do-or-die, because if we lose this, we may lose out on second or third.”

Punahou went with senior Rustin Katsura on the mound, and he gave up a two-run triple to Elijah Ickes with two outs in the second inning and two more runs in the third.

After that, the Buffanblu called on Terada-Herzer, who threw 79 pitches and went five innings, giving up two runs on four hits with four strikeouts.

He was tested as the sun fell behind the high-rise buildings lining Waikiki in the bottom of the eighth. A one-out single by Lobetos and an error and a hit batter loaded the bases with one out.

Terada-Herzer hunkered down with a strikeout and then fell behind 3-1 before battling back to get the fly ball to center on a 3-2 pitch.

“I knew it was all or nothing, so I had to give it my all,” Terada-Herzer said. “I took a few deep breaths when I got on the mound and had to calm myself down. It’s baseball. It’s the same game. Just throw strikes and do what I do.”

Kamehameha left 11 runners on base but also had some clutch hits in key moments.

Ickes got the scoring started when he roped a triple down the right-field line to put Kamehameha ahead 2-0 in the second inning.

Punahou came right back to tie it in the top of the third when hot-hitting Joey Wilson smashed a two-run triple off the left-field fence with two outs to score two.

Kamehameha third baseman Aukai Kea put the Warriors back in front with an RBI double and scored on Jace Souza’s two-out RBI single to make it 4-2 in the bottom of the inning.

Punahou’s Kaikea Harrison, who had three hits in the game, tied it at 4 with a single in the fourth.

Both teams scored two runs in three separate innings.

“We had plenty of opportunities. I felt like we could have brought (runners) in, but obviously we didn’t,” Kamehameha coach Daryl Kitagawa said. “Overall in the grand scheme of things we are still in the same position we were going into today, so it is what it is. It was a good, fun high school baseball game.”

The Warriors sit in second place at 7-3-1 ahead of the trio of teams with four losses. They will play four times in seven days, ending Monday with a make-up game against ‘Iolani that could have huge ramifications.

The Crusaders have basically locked up the guaranteed berth by winning the regular season. The postseason tournament will award another berth to the winner. The ILH will get three spots total in the state tournament, meaning any number of scenarios could play out, making finishing in the top three in the regular season so important.

“Every team does have an opportunity with the ILH tournament, but again, the better position we can get ourselves into, and playing better baseball going into the tournament, is where you want to get to,” Kitagawa said.