Bree Soma and the Spartans face off with Mahina Sauer and the Warriors with the top spot in ILH Division I play at stake. ScoringLive photo illustration

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First place in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division I softball standings will be at stake when unbeatens Kamehameha and Maryknoll face off in a midday showdown.

Both teams are ranked in the top five of this week's ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Power Rankings and enter the weekend with identical 3-0 regular-season records.

The fifth-ranked Warriors have been productive at the plate, racking up 48 runs in their first three games. They opened the season with a 10-6 home win over Punahou before mercy-rule victories over Sacred Hearts (21-1, 5 innings) and Saint Francis (17-7, 6 innings).

"I'm very pleased so far," Kamehameha coach James Millwood said. "We have three wins and that's the main stat I'm worried about. We're still kind of playing with the lineup as far as who is batting where, but our first four in the lineup have been the same all three games."

The top of the order for the Warriors has featured shortstop Alana Cobb-Adams in the leadoff role, followed by second baseman Jordan Millwood, first baseman Dallas Millwood and pitcher/designated player Mahina Sauer in the clean-up spot.

"They're just learning their roles, who is the one that needs to get on and who needs to get RBIs, so that's what we're working on — trying to be the best scoring team we can be," Millwood said. "We're pretty close to having our lineup where we want it. We have tinkered with a player here or there, but I think we kind of know what we're looking at."

Dallas Millwood, a 5-foot-10 sophomore, has a team-best .667 batting average. She drove in three runs against Sacred Hearts and five more against Saint Francis. Both Millwood and Cobb-Adams were Second Team All-Hawaii picks in 2015.

"We have some strong veteran returnees from last year's squad that we can count on and that the rest of the team can follow," James Millwood said. "Our big thing right now is keeping the errors and things like that to a minimum and play good, solid softball."

Sauer, a 5-foot-8 senior, has started each game in the pitching circle for the Warriors this year and is 3-0. She is also batting .545 at the plate. Millwood said he expects Sauer to start against the Spartans Saturday.

"She's been doing an outstanding job for us," Millwood said of Sauer. "She was mainly our DP last year and she did a great job at that. I had a talk with her that being a pitcher and hitting takes a lot out of you, but she's been doing a good job with it and she's been handling it well so far. She's a senior, she's a fighter and a battler so that's who we've been going with right now."

Sauer, a First Team All-Hawaii Division I selection last year, and the Warriors will be opposed by a Maryknoll offense that is averaging 11.3 runs scored per game after three games. Its first two games — a 10-0 win over Sacred Hearts and a 12-2 victory over Saint Francis — were called after five innings.

The third-ranked Spartans are coming off a 12-4 win over Pac-Five Wednesday.

"We've been mixing up the lineup so far and in every game so far, everybody has played," Maryknoll coach John Uekawa said. "We're all about ‘we' and ‘us' — that's what we're all about. This team is very close; closer than any other team I've had. They support each other sincerely, nobody sulks and everybody supports all of them."

Maryknoll features the hottest bat in the state in senior outfielder Bree Soma, who has a blistering .818 batting average. The University of Hawaii-signee has nine hits in 11 at-bats with five RBIs and seven runs scored.

"Bree Soma is on fire right now; she's getting a hit in every at-bat," Millwood said. "We've got to keep her off the bases to keep them from generating those runs. They're a solid team and they have good speed. They lost a really good pitcher last year, but their sophomore pitcher seems to be stepping up and doing her job so far and they have a lot of supporting cast that has returned. We knew they would be strong coming into the season."

Shearyna Labasan, last year's All-Hawaii Division I Player of the Year, is the now-departed pitcher Millwood was referring to, having graduated last summer. The sophomore is Kahilu McNicoll, who is 3-0 and has pitched all 17 innings with 14 strikeouts this season.

"If she wants to bring it, she can go low-to-mid 60's, so she can throw," Uekawa said of McNicoll. "Our coaches, Vince Labasan and Steve Carlos, have been working with her on her maturity and nurturing. We're trying to transition her into a pitcher. In the preseason she'd get hit and she would throw even harder, so she hasn't taken on that ‘Labasan' role just yet, but to this point we have been very, very blessed to have her."

Uekawa said sophomore Kamryn Kamakaiwi, who is dealing with a lingering leg injury, will see some time in the circle this season. He also noted that Second Team All-Hawaii catcher Nohea Hee (shoulder) and shortstop Kanoe Tanigawa (hand) are on the mend, but are expected to play Saturday.

"We're just kind of getting over three major injuries and we haven't put our full lineup together yet, so we're taking small steps," said Uekawa, who added that the focus has been on his team and not the opposition this year.

"I told our girls that this year I'm staying away from measuring other people and doing this and doing that," Uekawa said. "My focal point is having people work to stop us because we've been doing so much of that stuff — worrying about this girl can do this, or this girl can run — so this year it's like let's just play ball and we'll see how it goes. When we start focusing on other teams then we lose sight of what we want to do and because we're so young, that's something we can't do. We're not doing anything to prepare for Kamehameha other than we normally do and if we play our game then we should be fine."

First pitch between the Warriors and Spartans Saturday is set for Noon at Sand Island Park.

It will be the first of two regular-season meetings between the teams. Kamehameha will host Maryknoll on April 20.