ILH Softball
Punahou wins 10th straight to take ILH lead


  



Mon, Apr 1, 2019 @ [ 4:00 pm ]


FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Iolani 0 400000463
Punahou 3 0 4201X10120

W: Ashanti Martinez    L: Aleia Agbayani

PUN: Liana Heshiki 4-4 run 5 rbi dbl; Ashanti Martinez 7.0 IP 4 ER
IOL: Taylor Kai 1-3 run dbl; Ailana Agbayani 2.0 IP 1 ER 3 K


MAKIKI — Liana Heshiki cleaned up from the clean-up spot Monday afternoon.

Heshiki, a left-handed sophomore catcher, had four base hits and drove in a season-high five runs and junior pitcher Ashanti Martinez won her seventh consecutive decision to lead No. 6 Punahou to a 10-4 win over No. 7 Iolani in Interscholastic League of Honolulu softball.

The Buffanblu (10-2) recorded their 10th straight victory to take over sole possession of first place in the ILH Division I standings with a little over a week remaining in the regular season.

The Raiders (9-3), who started the day tied for first, saw their five-game win streak snapped. They now sit one game behind Punahou with four games remaining.

Heshiki accounted for a third of her team's 12 base hits. She doubled to the gap in right center to bring in a pair of runs in her first at-bat — part of a three-run first inning for Punahou — and then singled in each of her next three plate appearances. She drove in two more runs with her one-out single in the third inning, when she also came around to score, and pushed across another run with her two-out single in the fourth.

Buffanblu coach Boy Eldredge noted that Heshiki also went 4 for 4 with a double and two RBI in his team's previous meeting against the Raiders last month.

"She's like 8 for 8 against Iolani, it's just incredible," Eldredge said.

Heshiki's bat proved to be clutch in the clean-up spot with the D'asha Saiki — Punahou's third batter and the ILH's leader in batting average — going an uncharacteristic 0 for 3 with a walk and a run scored.

"I know (Iolani coach) Benny (Agbayani) knows D'asha, so we thought maybe he'd walk her more often, but with Liana behind her it's really hard to," Eldredge said.

Heshiki, who has registered at least one hit in all 11 games she has played in this season, said she was just doing her job.

"If D'asha is 0 for 3, it's my job to pick her up," Heshiki said. "Her job in that situation, going 0 for 3, is to play defense, which she did and my job as the fourth hitter when she's having a day like that is to come up and score the runs."

After the Buffanblu plated three runs in the bottom of the first, the Raiders quickly answered by scoring four runs on four hits in the top of the second. Aleia Agbayani's two-out RBI-ground rule double scored her sister, Ailana, for the go-ahead run.

It would be the last run that Martinez surrendered.

"I think what we did was we came in and coach Boy gave us kind of an inspirational talk, you could say, and he was kind of like, ‘You guys can't be beat. We practice for this, this is what we live for,' and I think deep down we were thinking, 'There's no one out here that can beat us,' and if we just stick to our game and just keep pushing through then we'll be fine, so I think that's what brought the momentum back to our side," Martinez said.

Punahou took the lead for good in the bottom of the third when Heshiki hit a first-pitch change-up from Aleia Agbayani to the right side of the infield, which allowed Maya Matsubara to score the trying run and Tiani Wayton to plate the go-ahead run.

Heshiki said she watched Iolani's Aleia Agbayani use her change-up with effectiveness in Saturday's televised game against Mid-Pacific.

"She threw it a lot against Mid-Pac and I knew that she would want to throw it, but I just looking fastball," Heshiki said. "I wasn't looking for change-up, but I knew she was gonna come with it, but I wasn't kind of ready. If I would have stayed on the pitch a little longer, I think I would have hit it to the fence."

The next batter, Asia Lee, then smacked Aleia Agbayani's very next pitch over the fence in left center for a two-run home run that made it a 7-4 Punahou lead.

An inning later, Matsubara and Wayton led off the frame with back-to-back doubles — Matsubara scoring on the latter — and Wayton eventually came home on Heshiki's two-out single to right field to stretch it to a 9-4 advantage.

"Against a good hitting team like Iolani we knew we have to hit (Agbayani) early in the count and I think that's what I looked for," Heshiki said. "I didn't look for that change-up, but I knew I had to swing at it that one time. I just wanted to put it in play and score runs for my team."

Heshiki saw just six pitches in her four at-bats Monday. Her first-inning double and fourth-inning single came on first-pitch offerings, while her singles in the third and sixth innings were on 0-1 counts.

"That's awesome," Eldredge said. "I'm hoping that our girls can be a little bit more aggressive with men on base and that's something we'll discuss as well, but Liana gets up there and she swings, so that's good."

Martinez scattered six hits and three walks. She did not strike out a batter and put the leadoff man on base in all but two innings.

"That's the only critique I would have for her, is that we're not getting that first batter out," Eldredge said. "I think five out of seven innings they got the first batter on and it just puts pressure on the defense, but like I said, our defense played well with runners on and so that turned out good."

Iolani's Anna Arita led off the top of the fourth with a single back up the middle off of Martinez. Lexie Tilton then sent a deep fly ball out to left field, which was tracked perfectly by Punahou's Eri Mizuguchi for the second out, just before she crashed into the collapsible outfield fencing.

"When I saw that going, I seen it and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, please get it, Eri. Please at least slap it back in or something,' and she came up with it and I literally wanted to go out there and, like, run and hug her," Martinez said. "I was so excited; I was pumped."

Martinez stranded one Iolani base runner in each of the first six innings. She is now 7-2 on the season with a 3.64 ERA.

"That's my girl," Heshiki said of her batterymate. "Ashanti, me and her, if we are in sync, I know that we can win. If she's on her game and I'm on my game and I just have to be that rock for her at that time if she's having a down game."

Martinez closed out the scoring by driving in an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth on her one-out single up the middle to score Wayton for a fourth time.

As they have done all season, Matsubara and Wayton set the table at the top of the lineup for the Buffanblu Monday. The duo reached base in seven of their eight plate appearances and accounted for seven runs scored.

"They are doing amazing right now. I couldn't ask for anything better, really. I mean, they're seeing the ball, putting it in play and that's all we can ask," Martinez said of the pair.

Should the Buffanblu run the table in their final four league games next week, they will lock up the regular-season title and secure one of the ILH's three berths in next month's Division I state tournament.

"It's great. I mean, shoot, we were tied with Maryknoll, Mid-Pacific and Iolani after the first round and we played all of them in the second round already and we beat all of them, so we're sitting in a pretty decent spot right now because they still have to play each other and that's what we talked about just now; Now the challenge is to stay focused and finish off strong," Eldredge said.

Punahou will have a week off before playing Sacred Hearts Monday at Ala Wai Community Park. It will play four games in five days to close out the 16-game regular season.

Iolani returns to the diamond Saturday when it takes on sixth-ranked Saint Francis, the reigning D2 state champion, Saturday morning at Ala Wai.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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