Brien Ing | SL

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While Kawena Alo-Kaonohi did his thing on the mound for the seventh-ranked Baldwin baseball team Friday night, his teammates pulled their weight with the bats in a 5-1 win over rival Maui High.

The Bears went on the offensive, rapping out 10 base hits from six different players. All but three of the Bears reached base, but two of them — Damien Awai and Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa — accounted for three sacrifices.

"From the very start we were hitting the ball," said Alo-Kaonohi, who earned the win after scattering five hits while going the distance. "Everybody was ripping the ball, touching the ball and that got us off to a good start. That got us ahead and helped us the rest of the game."

Nawai Ah Yen, Baldwin's center fielder and third hitter in the lineup, drove in the game's first run with his RBI-single to score leadoff man Haloa Dudoit in the top of the first inning.

After leaving the bases loaded in the second, the Bears took advantage of three Maui errors in the third and plated two runs when Ah Yen scored on Awai's double and the latter came in on a throwing error two batters later.

Dudoit made it a 4-0 lead after he scored on a sacrifice fly by Ah Yen in the fourth and Awai scored Baldwin's final run on a sacrifice fly by Hoopii-Tuionetoa.

"We had timely hitting," Baldwin coach Jon Viela said. "We manufactured runs, we had sacrifice flys, we ran the bases well — all of that contributes to putting runs on the board. We've been working on our hitting the past couple of weeks. They've been working hard in the cage with their swings. It paid off tonight and then we had good pitching. It was a good win for us."

The Bears, who are one of just two undefeated teams statewide in Division I at 10-0, had their second straight strong offensive showing. They posted 12 hits in a 10-4 win over Kamehameha-Maui Monday.

"Those were really the first two games that we put up double-digit hits; That's something we never did before," Viela said.

Alo-Kaonohi, who went 2 for 4 at the plate as the clean-up hitter, said the Bears' focus in practices lately has been on offense.

"Coach Jon told us that we're not the right team yet, we're not Baldwin yet," Alo-Kaonohi said. "We are Baldwin, but we weren't playing as a Baldwin team yet, but the past couple of weeks we've been hitting the ball. Coach Jon made us hit off of tees and just do all the fundamental parts and it worked good."

Meanwhile, Alo-Kaonohi turned in another masterful performance on the rubber. He threw just 81 pitches — 60 of them for strikes — and registered first-pitch strikes to 17 of the 27 batters he faced.

The only run that Alo-Kaonohi allowed was an unearned one in the bottom of the sixth inning, but there was no question in Viela's mind that he was sending his ace back out to finish the game.

"There was no doubt that we were going to use him all the way," Viela said. "His pitch count in the preseason was right around 75, so we knew that he could go beyond that as the season went now. He's very resilient, he's an athlete and he wanted the ball so there was no doubt that we were going to keep him in."

Alo-Kaonohi, a senior right-hander, credited his teammates for making enough plays — both defensively and offensively — to support him.

"I left my (curveballs) hanging (in the sixth inning) and (Maui) hit the ball, but I have a good defense and they backed me up and that's what I'm proud of," Alo-Kaonohi said.

The Bears and Sabers (9-1) play again on Monday and conclude the three-game series Tuesday at Iron Maehara Stadium in Wailuku.