KAILUA-KONA – Kealakehe softball coach Loni Mercado didn’t want to know the score, chided an onlooker for yawning during a tight game and joked that she actually put on shoes for this occasion, the BIIF Division I championship.
Mercado likes to remain loose, and since 2016 she’s built the program in her image, with good vibes and positive energy. The mindset produced a second championship Saturday for the Waveriders, who beat Hilo High 11-7 on their field. The triumph gave their two seniors bookend titles to BIIF careers that were cut in half by the pandemic, and it gave Mercado reason to smile.
Of course, she was smiling back before Kealakehe (7-0) had ever won a thing.
“It’s catching on,” Mercado said. “I always have to believe in the girls and have the confidence in the team, no matter who they are. They feed off that. I pace, but I’m always going to be positive. Keep pushing through.”
When senior pitcher Mia Joaquin fielded a comebacker and threw to first to secure the final out, she dropped to the ground and quickly had company as a celebratory pile formed.
“She fell, and I was like, ‘I got to go see my pitcher,” senior Jace Alvarez Hopkins said. “Been with her since freshman year. We won (the school’s) first one together. I’m happy we’re winning our last one together.”
Joaquin battled for a complete game with six strikeouts and walked just one. Perhaps the least surprising development of the day for her was that she was emotional afterward.
“Everything and all the work that I’ve put in,” she said. “A relief.”
Kealakehe’s four-run rally in the bottom of the sixth inning was vintage Kealakehe softball, Joaquin said.
Caitlyn Nakamura was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning, and one out later Freeda Tossie delivered the go-ahead RBI single. The next three batters, Makayla Johnson, Tilani Taketa and Alvarez Hopkins all reached on infield hits. The inning only ended when Vikings shortstop Quinn Waiki turned a nifty double play, making a catch in short left field and turning and firing to get a runner out at home.
But the damage had been done.
“We’re not big hitters,” Joaquin said, “but we’re small hitters who just keep going.”
And they follow the lead of their happy-go-lucky coach.
“It’s kind of hard to play when you’re all tense,” Joaquin said. “When you’re smiling and having fun with a good attitude, the game is just as easier.”
The Vikings (5-3), however, proved to be a difficult out on the final after losing twice to the Waveriders in the regular season.
Waiki hit a run-scoring single and Kira Alameda drove in two with a hit as Hilo scored four times in the third to tie the game 6-6.
Kealakehe retook the lead in the bottom half of the inning when Taketa singled and scored on Alvarez Hopkins’ double. But in the next half inning Hope Barclay singled, moved to second on a wild pitch, took third on Kawehi Augustin’s infield hit and was driven home by Kiana Agpalza’s sacrifice fly.
Joaquin allowed 11 hits – four off the bat of Augustin – but only two after Augustin’s hit in the fourth.
“This is a special opportunity for us,” Alvarez Hopkins said. “Playing with all of these girls, I wouldn’t have gotten here without them.”
Tossie joined Alvarez Hopkins and Taketa in having two hits for Kealakehe, which gears up for an HHSAA quarterfinal May 10 in Honolulu.
Alameda collected two hits and three RBIs, and Barclay was 2 for 3 for Hilo, which draws a first round assignment May 9 on Oahu. Starter Hauoli Kalipi struck out three in six innings and walked four.
In lieu of being called loosey-goosey, Mercado said the program is “kind of like the picture of the duck.”
“Cool, calm and collected up top, kick like hell on the bottom,” she said.
