OIA Baseball
Moanalua ousts Aiea from OIA tournament


Stacy Kaneshiro | ScoringLive
April 24, 2019, 10:17pm

  

Wed, Apr 24, 2019 @ [ 3:00 pm ]

Moanalua

8

Aiea

2

FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Moanalua 1 1240008101
Aiea 2 0 00000253

W: Z Miyashiro    L: Joe Canosa

AIEA: DJ Akiyama 1-4 run rbi dbl; Jordan Cezar 2.7 IP 0 ER 3 K
MOA: Cade Fernandez 4-4 run 4 rbi dbl trp; Z Miyashiro 7.0 IP 2 ER




AIEA — Moanalua used the ‘Z' factor to stun Aiea, 8-2, in the first round of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I tournament Wednesday at Aiea Recreation Center field.

Freshman left-hander Z Miyashiro scattered five hits behind a strong defense in his complete-game win in ousting West third seed Na Alii (8-5) from the playoffs. Na Menehune (5-8) will travel to East second seed Kaiser in the quarterfinals 3 p.m. Thursday. The winner advances to Friday's semifinals at Les Murakami Stadium and secures a Division I state berth.

"Anybody can beat anybody at any time," Moanalua coach Scott Yamada said. "(Aiea) is a great, quality club. They swing the bat. We live another day. Back to the drawing board tomorrow."

Moanalua was the East's sixth seed and had to travel for its first-round game. It needs to win out the OIA tournament just to reach .500. This will be the third time Moanalua will play Kaiser, which won both regular-season meetings.

"The job's not done yet," Miyashiro said. "Why not us?

Miyashiro was charged with two runs, both coming in the bottom of the first inning, while walking two with no strikeouts. He let his defense take care of business. Aiea had some deep flies that were hauled in by Moanalua's outfielders. Na Menehune center fielder Cade Fernandez made a strong throw from deep center on a hit by Trey DePonte, who was gunned down at second trying for a double. The next batter, Noa Ohara, drilled a liner down the left-field line, but left fielder AJ Killion cut the ball off quickly to hold Ohara to a single.

"We hit hard, but the balls got caught," Aiea coach Ryan Kato said. "They made the catches. They played good defense."

Unlike Aiea, which committed three errors that accounted for five unearned runs against losing pitcher Joe Canosa, who went 3 1/3 innings.

"We made some mistakes that gave them some extra chances," Kato said. "They made us pay for it. That's the mark of a good team."

Fernandez was havoc on Aiea's pitching. He batted 4 for 4 with four RBIs. He was a home run shy of the cycle. He had a single, triple and double in his first three at-bats and singled again in his fourth.

"No, no," Fernandez said. "I wasn't thinking about (the cycle). I was just trying to get to the next guy, just put solid contact to the bat."

With Moanalua trailing 2-1 in the top of the second, he stole second with two out and scored on a pick-off throwing error to tie the game at 2. In the third, his two-run triple gave Moanalua a 4-2 lead. He added a two-run double in a four-run fourth, which featured an RBI double by Bryson Sato. Another run scored on one of two errors in the inning.

Prior to the game, Miyashiro had walked nine in 10 2/3 innings. His previous start was April 16 in a 3-2 loss in eight innings to Castle. Miyashiro pitched a complete game.

"I just executed when I had to," Miyashiro said of his success. "They just didn't square up."

Moanalua took a 1-0 lead in the first with textbook baseball. Zak Tachino led off with a double, took third when Sato grounded out to second and scored on Mathis Yamamoto's sacrifice fly to right.

But Aiea came back in the bottom of the first. Ryson Ujimori led off with a walk and scored on DJ Akiyama's double to left-center. After taking third when John Navarro grounded out to second, Chase Mindoro walked to put runners at the corners. Miyashiro's pick-off throw to first was late, but on the return throw to the pitcher, the alert Akiyama stole home to give Aiea a short-lived 2-1 lead.

Na Menehune regained the lead on Fernandez's two-run triple in the third and added four in the fourth. The first scored with two errors before Sato's RBI double made it 6-0. Yamamoto's double to right was played well enough to stop Sato at third. Canosa was pulled for left-hander Jordan Cezar, who got Killion to ground out to first and freeze the runners. But the hot-hitting Fernandez's ground-rule double to left made it 8-2. Fernandez made it all the way to home before the umpires discussed the play and ruled it a double.


Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at [email protected].




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