Pearl City outlasts Aiea in 11 innings in state baseball
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Devin Fujino singled home Tyler Oshiro with two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning Tuesday as Pearl City surprised Aiea 3-2 in the opening round of the Wally Yonamine Foundation/HHSAA Baseball Division I State Championships at Les Murakami Stadium.
"It's throwing strikes, mixing it up. I used my curveball a lot today," said Fujino, who started on the mound and pitched five innings before moving to right field. "We knew coming into states that the records are wiped clean. We're both 0-0. We had nothing to lose. Nobody's looking at us as a big threat. We just had to play our hearts out and leave it all out there today."
Aiea (12-4)was this season's Oahu Interscholastic Association runner-up. Pearl City (9-8) was the fifth-place team. Coach Duane Eldredge and staff exercised patience with a team that had its share of ups and downs coming into the tourney.
"Our goal from the very get-go ever since we lost that first game to Mililani was to the boys, it doesn't matter where we are now. We just have to be at our best when we get to the end of the season," Eldredge said. "The boys are coming up now. Are we there yet? We're playing a lot better."
Pearl City lost both of its regular-season matchups with Aiea, 7-2 and 10-5, as Na Alii finished first in the OIA West.
"We talked about that the whole season. We kind of fell flat in the regular season, but in the playoffs we were kind of showing more life," Fujino said. "We had the energy up in the dugout. I think that really helped us. We're really a momentum-based team. When we have our highs, they're really up there, but our lows are pretty low. Our mentality is we don't care who the other team is, just keep the energy up."
Pearl City was flawless defensively without an error. Aiea committed four.
Pearl City got outstanding efforts from four pitchers, including Fujino. The 6-foot-2 left-hander allowed two runs on five hits in his five innings, struck out five and walked two. Noah Bernal threw three scoreless innings, followed by Jase Lorenzo and the eventual winning pitcher, Noah Kia, who threw one inning.
"They're all different. Fujino's our lefty who's 6-2. He basically gave Aiea trouble the last time we played them, so we decided to go with him again. Bernal's been kind of our ace, our go-to guy," Eldredge said. "Lorenzo's been our get-out-of-the inning guy. He has this awkward motion and messes people up. Doesn't throw very hard. Kia comes back with a little more velocity, more of a three-quarter (motion) guy. We don't have a guy who can go seven innings so we're going to mix them up and use their strengths."
The Chargers began the bottom of the 11th with a one-out walk issued to Oshiro by Aiea's fourth pitcher, Dylan Wong. Ethan Higashionna then doubled in the right-center gap on a ball that was nearly caught on a diving attempt.
Wong had the count 0-2 on Fujino when the southpaw slapped an outside-corner pitch the opposite way, scoring Oshiro from second base for the win.
