The Warriors await to greet Athan Kuewa at home plate in the seventh inning of an ILH Division I contest against Punahou. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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HAWAII KAI - Kamehameha finally hit the ball where they weren't.

After being robbed of extra-base hits on diving catches earlier in the game, the No. 3 Warriors scored four runs in the top of the seventh to rally by No. 5 Punahou, 5-2, Tuesday at Goeas Field.

The win keeps the Warriors (8-2) tied for first with Saint Louis in the Intescholastic League of Honolulu Division I race, while the Buffanblu (6-4) remain in third.

Lii Pontes (3-0) ptiched six strong innings for the Warriors, scattering four hits and a walk, while being charged with two runs, one earned. He had five strike outs. After the Warriors took the lead, Hunter Breault walked the lead-off batter in the top of the seventh but retired the next three batters for his second save in his third relief appearance of the season.

Punahou starting pitcher Kyle Uemura (3-1) also pitched six strong innings and took a 2-1 lead into the top of the seventh, when the Warriors hit him hard. Uemura went 6 2/3 innings, allowing five runs, two earned, six hits and four walks with three strikeouts before giving way to Andrew Matsueda, who got the third out after walking the first batter he faced.

Kamehameha got two long balls in the seventh - pinch-hit lead-off double by Chase Miyasato and a two-run home run by Kalamaku Kuewa - that could not be snagged by the Punahou outfielders.

"I tip my hat to their outfield," Kamehameha coach Tommy Perkins said. "They stole some hits from us. But our guys were still making good contact with the ball, so I just wanted them to keep swinging."

Earlier in the game left fielder Kai Terada-Herzer's diving stab of a fly toward the foul line robbed Micah Kinoshita of a hit and center fielder Cole Cabrera made a diving catch to steal a hit from Dylan Salcedo. Cabrera also tracked down a deep fly by Logan Salcedo.

Trailing 2-1 entering the seventh, pinch hitter Chase Miyasato led off the frame with a double to right-center, putting the tying run in scoring position against Uemura. No. 9 batter Chaeston Chon bunted back to Uemura, whose errant throw to first allowed pinch runner Noah Kim to score and Chon to make it to third.

"He's been fairly consistent, but has had some injuries," Perkins said of sending Miyasato to pinch hit for Hunter Fujitani, who was 0 for 2. "He's been out there doing a few things, swinging the bat a little bit. He's got a good swing and we wanted to bring a lefty in (to face the right-handed Uemura). He did his job."

Added Miyasato: "I knew the team was behind me; all I had to do was get on base because they can string things together, bunts and hits. If we go tthe lead runner on, something good would happen."

With the go-ahead runner at third, Kawai Takemura, who labored defensively with three errors, lifted fly to shallow right toward the foul line. Right fielder Colin Freeman made the catch and made the throw home a little toward the third base side, but catcher Matthew Nakamoto could not hold on to the ball, as Chon crossed the plate. Had he held on to the ball, Nakamoto had a chance to apply a tag as Chon had not reached the plate when the throw hit Nakamoto's glove.

"That was the chance we took," Perkins said of sending home the runner on the shallow fly with no outs. "We needed the run and it had to be a perfect throw and it was a perfect throw; it just got away from (the catcher)."

Logan Salcedo followed with a drive to deep center that Cabrera tracked down for the second out. But Nakea Hanohano lined a single to left - he batted 3 for 4 - and Kuewa hit a first-pitch fastball from Uemura over the left-center field fence to insure the Warriors' lead and chase Uemura from the mound.

"Right when it came off the bat, I just felt it," Kuewa said of his homer.

Kuewa, who was 0 for 3 before the homer, noticed Uemura had lost some velocity.

"In that inning, he was starting to get slower," Kuewa said.

Uemura had thrown 78 pitches through six. He had retired the last six batters he faced from the fifth inning rather routinely.

"He left a couple (of pitches) up," Punahou coach Keenan Sue said. "That would be indicative of him running out of gas a little bit, but we have a lot of confidence in Kyle. He keeps the ball down and he did a good job most of the game. In retrospect, it is what it is. You can't do anything about it. I made the decision to leave him in. If we made a couple of plays there, it's a completely different inning. It always comes down to execution and we always tell the guys if you're not training for the last pitch, the last out of the last inning then you're not preparing properly, so we just gotta go back to work tomorrow and just clean it up and come back against Iolani on Thursday."

The Warriors took a 1-0 lead in the third. Logan Salcedo led off with a walk, stole second and scored on Hanohano's single to left. But Kuewa grounded into a fielder's choice and was doubled off first when Jesse Awa flied out to right.

The Buffanblu tied it in the bottom of the third. Asa Kurasaki led off with a single before Terada-Herzer struck out. Pontes then hit Cabrera and Freeman with pitches to load the bases. Kyson Donahue grounded out to first to score Kurasaki, but Matsueda poppled out to first to keep damage to a miminum.

Punahou took the lead in the fifth when Terada-Herzer reached on a two-base fielding error by shortstop Takemura. After Cabrera walked, the runners advanced on Freeman's sacrifice. With the infield playing in with one out, Donahue singled to left to scored Terada-Herzer to give Punahou a 2-1 lead. After a visit by pitching coach Jayson Kramer, Pontes got Matsueda on a lineout to second and struck out Noah Loughlin to strand the runners.

The beneficiary of the rally was Warriors' starter Pontes.

"My coaches told me to keep pounding the zone and if I keep doing that, we'll get outs with my defense backing me up," Pontes said. "Sometimes there were some rough spots, but Chase (Miyasato) came up with the clutch hit to start up our rally."