Kamehameha's Matthew Yokota slides into home plate as Mid-Pacific's Noah Shackles defends. Steve Erler | Special to SL

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Mid-Pacific's Jacob Maekawa led the Owls with a 2-for-3 day at the plate, scoring a run and driving in two more. Steve Erler | Special to SL

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Using its typical formula of pitching, defense and small ball, Mid-Pacific claimed its fourth consecutive Interscholastic League of Honolulu championship with a 3-2 win over Kamehameha Tuesday afternoon.

The Owls, who are ranked third in the ScoringLive/OC16 Baseball Power Rankings, got nine base hits from eight different players and a solid 5 1/3 innings of work from starting pitcher Grant Doi to improve to 12-3 on the year. It is their fourth consecutive league title and 19th overall.

"I could tell you maybe an hour from now exactly what happened, but right now I'm just feeling really good," Mid-Pacific coach Dunn Muramaru said after the game.

The fourth-ranked Warriors, who had won five of their last six games, dropped to 10-7. They needed to win Tuesday to force a postseason tournament final Friday. Had they also won Friday — which would have assured them the ILH tournament title — the teams would have squared off yet again Saturday for the overall league crown.

As the regular-season champion, Mid-Pacific needed to beat Kamehameha just once to clinch a coveted seeded berth for next week's 12-team Division I state tournament.

"It was good to win today and not have to play Friday, Saturday, because if we had to play Friday, Saturday, oh my gosh," Muramaru said. "I think it's kind of a relief, because we've been sitting for a week and the guys were getting kind of sale, but heck the pitchers came through today."

Doi, a 6-foot senior right hander, did not surrender a hit until the fourth inning and ended up allowed three runs on three hits. He struck out five and walked four before giving way to Jacob Maekawa, who got the final two outs of the sixth inning. Noah Sills pitched a perfect seventh inning and got the save.

"Grant's been stepping it up for us a lot lately these last couple games," senior catcher Noah Shackles said. "He's bearing down. Our coaches provide us with a good game plan, we just follow that game plan and if we do that, we'll be fine."

It was Doi's fifth appearance against the Warriors this season, which has amounted to 24 2/3 innings pitched. He has allowed just nine earned runs in that span and is 3-1 against them on the year.

"It's always tough trying to pitch to the same team over and over," senior second baseman Jacob Maekawa said. "It gets harder every single time, but he did a great job keeping them off balance."

Kamehameha coach Tom Perkins tipped his cap to Doi.

"We've seen him a lot," Perkins said. "We tried to prepare for him and Chase (Wago), trying to get together and see which way we were going to go. We worked on our off-speed pitching, going to the opposite field, but it just didn't happen today. We struggled with that."

Ladd Ah Choy went the distance for the Warriors, scattering nine hits over six innings. He struck out three and did not give up a walk.

"He did a great job," Perkins said of his starter. "I thought he did a great job defensively. As far as Mid-Pac, they're going to hit the ball — they're a great offensive team — and they're going to put the ball in play somewhere, no matter what, but Ladd kept them at bay."

Mid-Pacific recorded a single in each of the first three innings, but couldn't capitalize until the bottom of the fourth, when it sent six batters to the plate and scored two runs on four hits. Ryne Yamashiro singled in Tyler Yamaguchi for the first run of the game and two pitches later, Jarrod Infante singled in Wago.

Maekawa led off the fifth inning with a double to the power alley in right. He moved over to third on a sacrifice bunt by Alexander Oley before coming home on Shackles' RBI bloop single to short left.

"I don't really know what happened," Shackles said. "I had a lot of trouble against Ladd in the past. I just put the bat on the ball and it dropped in."

Kamehameha got on the board in the top of the sixth. Codie Paiva's sacrifice fly to center allowed Matt Yokota to score from third base to make the score, 3-1. Two pitches later, Makana Arakaki caught a hold of a Maekawa offering and sent it off the fence in deep center for an RBI double, scoring Kawaiola Takemura from second to make it a one-run game. However, Maekawa got Brandon Henderson to ground out for the third out of the inning, ending the Warriors' threat.

The game was moved early Tuesday morning from Mid-Pacific's Damon Field to Iolani due to unplayable conditions.

"At 3 o'clock this morning I was walking my dog and I looked at our field and it was under water and I knew there was no way we were going to play on it," Muramaru said.

Muramaru acknowledged that had the game been played at Damon Field — which is just 333 feet to center field — it could have been a different story.

"It helped us out a lot," Muramaru said. "You saw that ball that hit the fence? That's a three-run homer at our place."

Perkins knew the implications as well.

"That's a big impact for us, but we've also been working on things like that and when we're playing on a big field, you've got to adjust to the big field and do we swing for a big hit, or do we swing for a base hit?," Perkins said. "It's just that mental toughness, knowing what we need to do, and that was a great hit, but it was just short. The good thing was (Arakaki) been struggling a little bit, so it was good to see him battle back, stay in there and stay with it."

Despite the loss, Perkins sees a silver lining to it.

"I see it as a blessing in disguise," Perkins said. "Hopefully we can regroup, work on the mental things we need to work on and be prepared for the states."

It was the fifth time the teams faced off this season. Mid-Pacific has won three of the meetings. Both teams have already clinched state-tournament berths.