OIA Baseball
Chargers hand Trojans first loss, tighten race atop OIA West standings


Kalani Takase | ScoringLive
April 6, 2026, 8:41pm

  

Mon, Apr 6, 2026 @ [ 3:00 pm ]

Pearl City

5

Mililani

4

FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Pearl City 0 030020552
Mililani 0 0 00202492

W: Imipono Kala    L: Ajay Moss    SV: Ian Wicklund

MIL: Ezra Ugale 3-4 2 rbi; Ajay Moss 5.3 IP 3 ER 3 K
PC: Tytan Takahashi 1-3 2 rbi; Imipono Kala 4.6 IP 2 ER




MILILANI — Round one to the Chargers. 

Pearl City scored first then held off a couple of late-inning rallies by Mililani to come away with a 5-4 win Monday afternoon to tighten up the OIA Division I baseball race coming into the final stretch of the regular season. 

David Englar and Tytan Takahashi drove in two runs apiece to help the Chargers (7-2) hand the Trojans (7-1) their first loss in league play. A crowd of about 200 fans saw the visitors bounce back from an extra-innings loss against Waianae Saturday. 

With Monday's result, Pearl City pulled within a half-game of Mililani for first place in the OIA D1 West standings. 

The Trojans could have secured the West's No. 1 seed in the league tournament with a win Monday. Instead, the Chargers kept alive their hopes for a first-place finish. The top two teams will receive a first-round bye in the 12-team tournament. 

"It's huge for momentum, just to build momentum and hopefully we can win this next game and just keep it going," said Englar, a junior first baseman.

Unlike their prior contest against the Seariders on Saturday — when the Chargers saw a three-run lead erased over the sixth, seventh and eighth innings — coach Duane Eldredge's squad buckled down against the Trojans, who were averaging nearly seven runs a game through their first seven contests. 

"Against Waianae (Saturday) we came out OK and then second half we just decided to relax too much, so I think today was a nice showing for what we want our boys to be doing," Eldredge said. 

Pearl City split its two meetings against Mililani a year ago — before the Trojans went on to claim the fifth OIA championship in program history — but was swept in the season series in both 2023 and 2024. 

"A win against Mililani is always great because they're the team to beat and showing that we can do it, I think is huge for us. It gives us confidence and hopefully we can carry that over to tomorrow," Eldredge added, alluding to Tuesday's 3 p.m. rematch at the Chargers' field. 

Monday's game was scoreless through two innings before Pearl City drew first blood in the top of the third. Cohen Adaro and Noah Kawakami drew back-to-back walks to start the frame, but the former was thrown out by catcher Taye Marxen while attempting to steal second. After Kawakami got on via base-on-balls, Jodi Takara reached safely via bunt single to put two runners aboard for Ian Wicklund. 

The left-handed Wickland pulled a single through the right side of the infield. An errant throw from right field got away from the third baseman and allowed Kawakami to score the game's first run. The very next batter, Englar, laid down a sacrifice bunt on a well-executed squeeze play. Not only did Takara score easily from third on the sacrifice, Wicklund hustled all the way from second to beat the throw home from first base. 

"We work a lot on that in practice, the double squeeze with runners on second and third, and we just executed it right there," Englar said. 

Eldredge credited Englar, Takara and Wicklund for executing the play — one that they have fine-tuned over hours of practice. 

"That's one of the things we like to do. When people don't expect it, we like to look for the bunt, the drag, the squeeze — whatever it might be — it's something that we look for when we can," Eldredge said. 

The Trojans loaded the bases in the bottom of the third thanks to a pair of walks sandwiched around an Ayden Kanno single, but starting pitcher Imipono Kala got Jonah Parker to fly out to center, where Wicklund tracked down the deep fly ball, for the third out and escaped the jam. 

Kala, a right-handed junior, said he offered a change-up to Parker, who went after the first pitch of the high-leverage at-bat. 

"I threw it down the middle but I knew Ian was out there so I already knew he would get the out. I was a little bit nervous, but I knew he was gonna get the out," Kala said. 

Kala was making his third start of the year. In his season debut back against Campbell on March 6, Kala struck out six batters and walked three in 5 2/3 innings of one-hit ball but came away with a no decision. His most recent appearance saw Kala scatter four hits over five scoreless frames, with six punch outs against two free passes, in a win over Aiea last Tuesday. 

"I don't think people realize how well Pono Kala has been doing for us," Eldredge expressed. "Today's runs that they scored against him, those were the first two runs (he's allowed) this year, so he's been doing well and he's been getting out of jams for the most part throughout the year."

Mililani plated a pair of runs — both with two outs — in the bottom of the fifth on Ian Murasaki's RBI-double and Ezra Ugale's RBI-single. That pulled the Trojans within a run through five innings, but the Chargers pushed across a pair of insurance runs in the next half-inning. 

Englar and Jeiden Yamamura drew consecutive one-out walks to set the table for Takahashi, who lined a ground ball back up the middle to score both baserunners. That stretched it back to a 5-2 lead for the visitors. 

"With Mililani it's always good to get insurance runs because they're never out of it," Eldredge said. "They're a good team, they're talented and the last inning shows again that they're always gonna put pressure on you."

In the bottom of the seventh, the Trojans sent eight batters to the plate and nearly tilted the game in their favor. 

Ugale drove in another run to cut it to 5-3 before a fielding error allowed pinch runner Brenden Kihoi-Eng to score. An intentional walk to Koa Marzo loaded the bases for pinch hitter Jacob Yamada, but Wicklund — who had moved from center to the mound five batters prior — struck him out on three pitches to secure the save. 

Eldredge disclosed that Wicklund, a University of Hawaii verbal-commit, wanted the ball to start the bottom of the seventh. 

"He was a little upset that I wasn't going to put him in the last inning and I told him, I said, ‘Hey, if you do come in it's gonna be a tough spot,' and he goes, ‘I got it, coach,' and he came in and did the job," Eldredge said. 

Kala, who is 2-0 on the year with a 0.92 earned run average, tipped his cap to his defense, particularly Adaro at the hot corner. The junior third baseman recorded six assists and overcame an early throwing error in the bottom of the first inning. 

"That guy is like a ball magnet," Kala said. "He gets every ball, he picks every ball and yeah, he's a good third baseman."

Thanks in part to Adaro's lockdown play at third, the Trojans stranded a total of 13 baserunners over the course of the game, including nine in scoring position. 

"Cohen, it's funny, he'll have a bad throw every now and then and today he was right on it and it really made a big difference because all his plays, he made the play," Eldredge said. 

Takara was the lone Pearl City player to pair hits. 

Parker and Ugale each went 3 for 4 for Mililani, which recorded nine total hits. Marzo, Jake Nishimoto and Murasaki each drew a pair of walks in the loss. 

Ajay Moss was the pitcher of record for the Trojans. The freshman allowed five runs on three hits. He walked five and struck out three over 5 1/3 innings of work before he gave way to Xavier Sawa, who logged 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief. 

Following Tuesday's rematch against the Chargers, Mililani wraps up D1 West play on Monday, when they resume a suspended game against Leilehua from March 19. The Trojans held a 4-0 lead in the third inning when play was halted at Wahiawa Middle School due to weather and field conditions. 

Before the start of the OIA tournament, both Mililani and Pearl City will play three more games against OIA East teams, which will not count toward either team's league record and therefore have no impact on seeding for the postseason. 


Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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