Kapa'a grad spurs title drive
By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer
Frequent Hawai'i visitor Lewis-Clark State of Idaho won its 12th NAIA baseball championship last week, and a Hawai'i athlete contributed significantly to it.
Redshirt freshman second baseman Micah Furtado, a 2000 graduate of Kaua'i's Kapa'a High School, was chosen to the NAIA all-regional first team and received honorable mention All-America honors.
Furtado hit .320 (8-for-25) in six games in the NAIA World Series, which ended Friday with host Lewis-Clark State beating Oklahoma City, 12-8, for the championship at Lewiston, Idaho.
Furtado earned a starting position in early March, and by the time Lewis-Clark State played in the Rainbow Easter Tournament at UH the last week of March, he was the Warriors' biggest offensive threat. He made the all-tournament team and hit in every tournament game but his last one.
Lewis-Clark State has played in the Rainbow Easter Tournament 12 years and won or shared the championship four times.
"To play well there, in front of a lot of my family, was pretty important," said Furtado, whose entourage included between 15 and 25 family members per tournament game. "You can't ask for much more than that."
Furtado finished as his team's statistical leader in 10 offensive categories and was second or third in five others.
Furtado is "a consummate leadoff man," notes Jim Browitt, baseball writer for the Lewiston Morning Tribune. He led the team in on-base percentage (.506), times walked and hit by pitcher (an amazing 17 beans), stolen bases and runs scored.
He was second in hits and batting average (.393) and first in the unkept statistic of putting the ball in play — Furtado struck out once every 17.4 times up.
"There's no doubt he's the toughest guy on the team, and that's the kind of guy you want on the field," said Lewis-Clark State coach Ed Cheff. "He has all the intangibles."
One other tangible thing Furtado delivered was power. "One-third of his hits were for extra bases, that's incredible for a leadoff man," Cheff noted.
"He has a nice comfort zone," Cheff added. "He doesn't have to over-rotate or try to generate a ton of power. He develops a lot of controlled power. He hits line drive home runs."
Furtado hit 12 homers, including two in the opening game of the World Series.
Cheff also likes what Furtado gave the Warriors at second base — "He's quick, he gets to balls and fields the position pretty well," the coach told Browitt.
Cheff's son, Tyler, a former UH player who is the pitching coach and a biology teacher at Leilehua High, sold his dad on Furtado, who said he was not recruited by UH.
"Hawai'i was where I really wanted to go," Furtado told Browitt. "When that didn't work out, I started looking at L-C."
EXTRA INNINGS: Micah Furtado graduated from Kapa'a with a 3.76 grade-point average and got an academic scholarship to Lewis-Clark State. Coaches soon decided to redshirt him for the 2001 season. "I didn't really like the idea — that was my first year out of baseball for what seems like my whole life — but it worked out for the best," said Furtado, who through weight-training and other conditioning dropped nearly 20 pounds to between 160 and 170 before this season (he's 5 feet 7). "It probably got me more ready to play this year." ... Furtado might move to the outfield next season. "There are a lot of things we can do with Micah," coach Ed Cheff said. "But he's going to be playing."
San Francisco: Two walk-on freshmen, Royce Fukuroku (Maui '01) and Cy Donald (Mililani '01) earned All-West Coast Conference honors. Fukuroku was chosen as utility fielder on the second team and Donald received honorable mention.
Fukuroku played all three outfield positions in addition to third base, shortstop and second base. He batted .316 (50-for-158) in 53 games, including a school single-game record-tying six hits against Loyola Marymount.
Leadoff hitter Donald hit .325 (55-for-169) in 51 games. He played third base, second base and shortstop.
