Pearl City, Mililani, Leilehua squeeze in for OIA baseball second place

By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer

Pearl City, Mililani and Leilehua were the winners when the O'ahu Interscholastic Association's tiebreaker rules were applied yesterday to the five-way tie for second place in the final Western Division baseball standings.

All five teams were tied for second place with 6-3 records when the round-robin season ended on Tuesday. Only four teams — division-champion Campbell (8-1) and three of the five who shared second place — can advance to the OIA Championship Tournament starting tomorrow night.

In past years, six teams advanced, but because the teachers' strike canceled all public-school sports for three weeks, the OIA and state tournaments were reduced from 12 to 8 teams in order to conduct them on weekends without students missing any class time.

'Aiea had a 3-0 record before the strike, but failed to maintain that momentum and went 3-3 afterward, losing to playoff teams Campbell, Mililani and Leilehua, all also 6-3. The first tiebreaker used is head-to-head results.

'Aiea senior Casey Onaga, who was one of the organizers of team practices during the strike, said Na Ali'i were pretty certain after their 2-1 loss to Leilehua on Tuesday that they were out. "We're sad and disappointed that we didn't make the playoffs, but we can't blame anybody because we controlled our own destiny," Onaga said. "It just didn't work out."

Leilehua benefited the most from the layoff. The Mules were 1-3 before the strike and 5-0 after.

"We finally started to play together as a team," said Darcy Yukumoto, wife of coach Garrett Yukumoto.

After the tiebreakers were applied, the West seeds came out Campbell No. 1, Pearl City No. 2, Mililani No. 3 and Leilehua No. 4. No tiebreakers were needed in the Eastern Division, where Kailua overtook Kaiser on the final day of the season Tuesday to win the title. The seeds are Kailua No. 1, Kaiser No. 2, Roosevelt No. 3 and Moanalua No. 4.

The championship tournament will be three days instead of the usual four. The first round is tomorrow, semifinals Saturday and the championship and third-place games Monday at 4:30 and 7 p.m. at Hans L'Orange Field in Waipahu. Monday's games will be televised live on Oceanic Cable channel 16.

OIA Championship Tournament
(Division and seed in parentheses)

First round

Tomorrow, all games 4:30 p.m.

Moanalua (E4) at Campbell (W1)

Mililani (W3) at Kaiser (E2)

Roosevelt (E3) at Pearl City (W2)

Leilehua (W4) at Kailua (E1)

Semifinals

Saturday, games at 1 p.m. at home site of higher seed

Campbell-Moanalua winner vs. Mililani-Kaiser winner

Roosevelt-Pearl City winner vs. Leilehua-Kailua winner

Finals

Monday at Hans L'Orange Field, Waipahu

Third place (Saturday's losers), 4:30 p.m.

Championship (Saturday's winners), 7 p.m.

(Monday's games televised live on Oceanic Cable channel 16)

Admission Monday only: $5 adults and students of non-competing schools, $3 students of competing schools with OIA athletic books and students 8th grade and under.

TELEVISION

• State, OIA events: The television schedule for OIA and state championship events has been set.

The OIA baseball and girls basketball third-place and championship games will be televised live on Oceanic Cable channel 16. Baseball is Monday, 4:30 and 7 p.m. and basketball is Wednesday at Blaisdell Arena, 6 and 8 p.m.

The state baseball championship will be delayed on KFVE at 9 p.m. May 19.

State girls basketball championship will be live on KFVE at 7 p.m. Monday, May 21.

State track and field highlights will be June 3 at 7 p.m. on KFVE.

A Hawai'i Sports Network "Year in Review" telecast will be June 5 on KFVE at 8 p.m.