HONOLULU — There may come a time when the Baldwin baseball team can look back on its split state championship with its Valley Isle rival Maui High and appreciate the journey that was.
Saturday afternoon was not that time.
“Sick. They’re sick,” Bears baseball coach Craig Okita said of his players’ reaction to the word from the HHSAA that the Division I championship would be shared with their Maui Interscholastic League competitor, after a series of attempts to finish the title game were denied by logistics and Mother Nature's unrelenting showers.
[Note: See below for more photos from the Division I and II championships.]
“It’s not the way you would see people react after a state championship. It’s not,” Okita added after the title game was called a no-contest with the score 2-2 in the top of the third inning. “I feel bad for our seniors. They’ve been in this state championship game, third year in a row we came up short.”
He was referring to Baldwin's narrow losses in the last two state Division I finals. This one proved elusive for a whole different reason; the outcome was difficult to grasp, despite the fact that both teams will receive a koa wood trophy and have their school listed among the all-time winners of one of the most popular and unpredictable championship events the HHSAA sponsors.
"It would’ve been a fairytale ending to send them out. That was the goal all year long," Okita said. "Maybe tomorrow we’ll change our outlook, but I guess at this point, it sucks."
It was the first state final in HHSAA history, in any sport, to be contested between two teams from Maui, and one of only a few to feature two teams from the same Neighbor Island.
That it came a matter of months after one of the worst disasters in state history, the Aug. 8 wildfires in West Maui, was not lost on the participants. Maui coach Chase Corniel tried to adopt a big-picture approach.
“This was for Maui and Maui is bringing home the championship,” he said.
“They’re good about it,” Corniel said of his players. “We’re there to support them. That’s what we’re here to do, to support not only Maui High but Baldwin as well.”
Players shook hands, posed together with the trophy and engaged in a playful round of “jan ken po” to determine which group would get to pose with the trophy first.
The Division I and II title games were moved to Moanalua when the tournament got pushed back a day due to islandwide heavy rain on Oahu. Les Murakami Stadium, the weeklong tournament site, was unavailable on Saturday due to high school graduations.
Forecasts called for yet more rain on Saturday.
The 10 a.m. Division II championship between two-time defending champion Damien and Kamehameha-Hawaii was able to go off without an issue under overcast skies. The Warriors defeated the Monarchs, 12-1.
After a delay of more than an hour, the Division I game finally got underway with a few hundred fans huddled under umbrellas and tents. Maui High jumped out 2-0, but Baldwin struck back against the team it faced for the Maui Interscholastic League championship.
Moanalua High’s brand-new turf field held up well, but the baseballs the teams used appeared soggy and heavy after play in the persistent, heavy drizzle.
The game was suspended at 2:53 p.m. Administrators and officials held discussions about alternate scenarios during the 46 minute suspension of play, before the HHSAA’s decision to call it a no-contest was announced at 3:39 p.m. due to safety concerns.
Players were not made available for interviews. The score and statistics to that point in the final were wiped clean.
“Multiple scenarios were considered to complete the game at a later date and venue, however due to end-of-the-school-year activities, including graduations, no viable options were available to complete the game,” the HHSAA said in a statement.
Okita said he knew the game had to be completed on Saturday. Scenarios were discussed prior to the semifinals Friday night and he said he favored the idea to play it at Moanalua, with its full turf field, as opposed to flying back to Maui to play the final at Iron Maehara Stadium or another site.
But he had second thoughts after the game was officially called.
“I knew it would be like this – gloomy, a little wet here and there,” Okita said. “But after thinking about it, I was thinking, ‘shoot, we should’ve taken it back to Maehara tonight.’”
It wasn’t a simple matter to just go to Maui, Okita added.
“We would’ve had to change our flights, check out of the hotel. We wouldn’t all be on the same plane for sure,” he said. “You got your luggage, you gotta go home, you gotta scramble. Then what about the other team, what about all the parents. Maehara, I don’t know if we could’ve gotten a permit that quick. Who knows. And so, like I said, I thought we could get it done here. And unfortunately we didn’t, and here we are.”
Corniel said he deferred decisions on where to play to the powers that be.
"Of course (Iron Maehara Stadium) crossed my mind, but you know, I don’t make that decision," Corniel said. "I’m here to just focus on the boys and make sure they focus on the season."
It was Baldwin’s seventh all-time baseball title and first since 2018. It was the third for Maui High and first since 2017.
The last HHSAA team sport to have a co-champion was boys soccer in 2018. Baldwin and Hawaii Prep Academy split the title when there were frequent lightning strikes in the vicinity of Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium.
Andy Correa knew there would be some adversity coming to Oahu and prepared his players accordingly.
So when an unpredictable week of weather delays and postponements hit the HHSAA Division II baseball tournament, it was no big deal.
Kamehameha-Hawaii took down two-time defending champion Damien, 12-1, in five innings at Moanalua for the school’s second all-time title in the Wally Yonamine Foundation/HHSAA championships on Saturday morning.
“The kids know that when we come here you gotta deal with all kinds of adverse things,” Correa, the KSH coach, said. “You gotta rent cars, you gotta stay in hotels. Four to a room. You just gotta deal with whatever. That was the whole talk at the beginning of the trip – get used to dealing with changes, and deal with adversity. When it carries over to the field, it’s always a really nice thing.”
KSH jumped all over Damien for nine runs in the first inning and kept up the pressure against the Monarchs’ depleted bullpen. Damien had to use its best two arms, Francis O’Connor and Aaron Rapoza, in a 2-1 semifinal win over Waianae on Friday.
The Warriors had their 7-2 semifinal win against Kauai High played over the course of two days when Thursday’s action was suspended. It turned out KSH had a similar game against Waiakea in BIIF play – and unlike that one, the semifinal didn’t need to be restarted.
KSH rapped out 10 hits, including two apiece by Kaohu Kawelu, Dominic Christensen and Shiloh Santos.
“We knew they could hit and we just hoped they’d hit more balls at our guys,” Damien coach Skyler Tengan said. “We gave them a lot of free bases with walks, beans and errors. You can’t do that to a good team, especially when they hit the ball like they do. They made us pay for it and that’s what good teams do. So hat’s off to them.”
Santos went the distance on a four-hitter for the win.
Kamehameha-Hawaii’s previous title came in 2016.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.