The Mililani baserunner slides back in safe at first as Kai Matsumoto looks on.

Trojans crush Falcons in OIA Playoffs

Kalani Takase | ScoringLive
April 19, 2018

Kahala, Hawaii - At its coach's behest, the Mililani baseball team took matters into its own hands Thursday.

Korrey Siracusa batted 3-for-4 and drove in five runs to lead Mililani to a dominating 12-1 win over host Kalani in the quarterfinals of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I baseball tournament.

An afternoon crowd of about 200 fans at Kahala Community Park saw the Trojans (10-4) rap out 14 hits to notch their fourth consecutive win and secure a spot in Friday's semifinal round at Les Murakami Stadium on an overcast day in East Honolulu. They also clinched a berth in next month's Wally Yonamine Foundation/HHSAA State Championships in the process.

"It feels good. I mean, we're the (West) third seed so we had to win two games and I'm just happy that we could come win the first game and we're coming alive now. We're peaking at the right time so we just want to keep it going into the state tournament and the rest of OIAs," said Siracusa, a senior catcher.

The Falcons (9-4) committed four errors, three of them coming in the second inning on Mililani bunts.

"We've just been trying to tell these guys that we've got to go out and make things happen for ourselves," Trojans coach Mark Hirayama said.

"The games that we struggled in, we kind of sat back too much expecting things to go our way, but it's like, we've got to go out and make things happen for ourselves and not rely on somebody else to do things for us, so we did a little bit of a better job with that early in the game and we had some lucky hits that fell in, coupled with some pretty good hits and we got some base runners on, so again it's just a matter of making things happen for ourselves."

The Trojans did just that in the opening frame.

The first four batters recorded hits in the top of the first inning. Shea Yamaguchi and John Richard Suehisa slapped back-to-back singles before a Kekoa Gabriel wild pitch allowed both runners to move into scoring position. That set-up Siracusa's triple to the gap in left center to score both runners.

"It was a fast ball, middle in," said Siracusa, a Cal State Fullerton signee. "I was just looking for a fastball and if it was something I could handle, I was going to try and drive it, try get it in the air so we could get at least one run out of it and luckily I squared it up, hit the gap and I just ran from there."

Siracusa scored one batter later on an RBI-single by Brycin Herrera to give the visitors a quick 3-0 cushion.

Kalani loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the first with three singles, but Mililani starting pitcher Ryan Ancheta worked out of the jam by getting Noah Nakasone to line out to right field for the second out before striking out Travis Toyama to strand all three base runners.

"It was big. At that point, we could probably afford to give up two, three runs, but at the same time we want to minimize the damage and I just think he beared (sic) down, he got over pitches that he needed to and he got out of it," Siracusa said.

Mililani plated more three runs in the second inning, two of them coming on a Siracusa single to left.

Siracusa was hit by a Gabriel pitch during the at bat, but was denied first base because the home plate umpire said he stuck his elbow out over the plate. Three pitches later, he drove in his third and fourth runs of the game.

"No, I don't think I stuck my elbow out, but I mean, I just had to flush it real quick," Siracusa said. "I couldn't let that bother me and I came up with the hit, scored two more runs so I mean, I'll take that over getting beaned and only one run."

The Trojans exploded for six more runs in the fourth. Bryson Arakaki drew a bases-loaded walk and Zach Lafata pushed across another run when he was hit by a pitch before Yamaguchi's two-run double extended the lead to 10-0.

Yamaguchi batted 3-for-3 with three RBI and three runs scored. The first four spots in the order combined to go 11-for-15 Thursday.

"I think usually we just take a lot of pitches, but today we came out swinging," Siracusa said. "We put the ball in play, made things happen and it just fell in our court today. We always talk about being proactive instead of reactive and today we were proactive."

Lafata scored one batter later when Suehisa blooped a single into short right field. Siracusa followed with an infield single to score Yamaguchi to close out the scoring.

Siracusa raised his batting average to .528 not he season. He has hit safely in five straight games.

"Korrey has been swinging the bat well the last couple weeks. He's understanding what we're trying to do and we've been working on some things for him to be successful at the next level, so he's finally getting comfortable with that and I think he's seeing the ball a little better, so it's just a matter of getting good pitches to hit, staying within himself and he'll be OK," Hirayama said.

Kalani, which was playing its first game in six days, used five pitchers in the loss. Gabriel had his shortest outing of the season and took his first loss since March 3 to fall to 2-2.

"I don't think the layoff had too much to do with it, he just didn't have his stuff today and there's days like that. He couldn't get through it but it didn't help that we made some errors that didn't help our cause and Mililani just started hitting the ball, too," Falcons coach Shannon Hirai said.

Ancheta scattered five hits with two strikeouts and a walk in his three innings of work to get the win before giving way to reliever Jason Shiigi, who gave up one run in two innings.

Ancheta threw just 55 pitches in the outing and improved to 4-1 on the year.

Kalani will host Kaiser in a fifth-place semifinal at 3 p.m. Friday at Kahala Field.

The Falcons, who had a first-round bye Wednesday as the East's second seed, saw their string of back-to-back final four appearances come to an end. Boxscore