Spoiler alert ahead for anyone in search of predictions on how Waiakea High School will perform this week when it heads back to the HHSAA Division I state tournament on Oahu.
You’ll have to go elsewhere to locate the soothsayer who can foretell a half-swing that accidentally becomes a bunt and then develops into an overthrow at first to became a crucial play. Or maybe it was the pitch that just missed the spot and got tapped into right field, just over the first baseman’s grasp and sent runners around the bases.
Remember Bill Buckner? Would you have predicted that would happen? It’s a nonsensical exercise and while we understand most of it is just for fun, it’s slippery territory, this idea of presuming to see the future.
We can probably get through our days without trying to predict results in high school baseball playoffs. This is a game that requires months of play to separate the best teams in the major leagues, and here we have teams gathering for a state finals in which teams haven’t played a tenth of a big league schedule.
We are better off considering the playoffs for what they actually represent to these teams and players and in that context, we already have a winner.
After spending a few moments last week with some random Waiakea players and coach Rory Inouye, my thoughts about the Warriors this week are simple — they have everything they need to make a run for a title they missed in last year’s championship game, and if they fall short, for whatever reason, they’ll be all right.
“At the end of last year, coming so close to a state championship, you could look around, which I did, and see that they wanted to get back,” Inouye said. “Yes, it was in their eyes, on the looks on their faces but it was more than that.
“I think we had 17 returnees this year, and on the first day of offseason weight training, everyone showed up. It’s been a joy coaching these kids, they are focused and they work for each other.”
You hear those things a lot on this side of the newspaper. Coaches are always talking about their hard-working players and team focus and all that, and in the case of Waiakea, what’s there to disagree with?
In four seasons as head coach, Inouye’s teams have gone 53-8 in BIIF competition, 4-5 in state tournament competition including last year’s ascension to the championship game where they fell short.
By any standard, that’s an outrageously strong record, winning 87 percent of conference games over a four-year span, but look closer.
In the last two seasons, the Warriors have gone 29-2 in BIIF competition — that’s winning 94 percent of their games — sharing championships for seven years running with Hilo on every other year.
About that bizarre year-on, year-off thing, nobody really has an explanation for it. Inouye strikes you as a realist. You talk about the seasons and the results and wonder if he has an insight from his view from the dugout.
“There is no explanation,” he said. “It’s something that has happened and that’s the best explanation there is. Maybe we can change it up next year.”
That would be accomplished by a second consecutive BIIF title, but first there’s a state tournament on Oahu. The Waiakea players will board a plane Monday night and head to the site, with a first round bye while awaiting word of their opponent, either Kamehameha-Maui or Campbell in Wednesday’s quarterfinals.
Whoever they play will be taking on a team with its feet firmly planted in the present, invested with the motivation that comes from being an “almost champion” the previous year.
“It wasn’t a good feeling,” said senior Reese Mondina, who missed last year’s tournament with an injury but is ready to go for a return visit. “We worked so hard last year, everyone, and to have it end that way? We all wanted to come back.”
But some of them, like Mondina, can see beyond this week. He plans to be a sonar technician and after hearing stories and possibilities from an uncle who has been there, Mondina plans to sign up for the Navy. He already knows he’ll be leaving in November, his future is brimming with interest because he’ll go to a place that will pay him to do what he wants to do as an adult.
That helps develop the focus on this week. No distractions about the future, just one pitch, one play at a time, for one more time.
Whoever they take the field against in their first game this week, Inouye will hand the ball to the ace of the staff, David Nakamura who has a similar maturity about his future.
He has dreams for his future, too. Nakamura has always wanted to be an Air Force pilot someday, he’s fascinated by the possibilities that a civil engineering course in college could open for him, so regardless of what happens this week, he’ll be a UH-Manoa student in the fall.
Baseball won’t be part of his personal future.
“I love baseball,” Nakamura said, “it’s a game that really teaches you things about life, I’m so grateful I had this opportunity, but I also know baseball isn’t going to put food on my table years from now.
“Even for the best, baseball comes to an end,” he said, “so I’ve been thinking about things besides baseball that interest me and I’ll be excited to get into it (in the fall).”
He won’t turn out for baseball at UH-Manoa, even if he happens to be the ace of a staff coming out a state championship.
“Baseball taught me the right attitude to take into life,” Nakamura said. “The best players fail seven times out of 10 at the plate, so you learn early how to turn the page and get on to the next thing, and as you do that, it sharpens your focus on what you need to work on.”
That low, outside pitch is hard to pull the trigger on? That’s why we have batting cages. Uncomfortable pitching inside and high? Work on it, the more work you put in, the better you will be.
“It gives you a positive attitude,” Nakamura said. “When the coach says, ‘Go do this,’ or ‘Go do that,’ I tend to think of it as being out there in the workforce and the boss says, ‘Go do this,’ and you may not understand why, but you respect the leadership, the position he’s in, you realize you will understand more as you go along, so you go do it and try to learn.
“Your baseball team becomes a family,” he said, “it pulls you together and even if you’re down 7-0, you have that attitude, ‘We can do this, let’s start one thing at a time and keep fighting back.’”
There is an unmistakable emotional intelligence on this team that drives them, from Inouye’s approach — Finish the Fight — down to the players who understand there is a world beyond high school baseball that awaits them.
But this week, there’s unfinished business to attend to and after spending some time around them, you feel they are ready for the challenge.
Comments? Questions? Whistleblower tips? Contact Bart at barttribuneherald@gmail.com
