But the Owls' journey to the state tournament is not over — not by a long shot.

In this oddest of seasons, MPI still must win the ILH tournament or beat the team that does before clinching a trip to Les Murakami Stadium on May 18-21. If the Owls fail to do either of those things, they will travel to Maui on May 15 to play the Maui Interscholastic League runner-up for a state berth.

"This has got to be the toughest season," said Mid-Pacific senior Harry Kuroda, a three-year letterman who earned the save yesterday by pitching the final inning when Saint Louis scored twice and had the tying run on first.

The ILH's and MIL's total number of guaranteed state tournament berths got reduced from four to three this season after the Big Island Interscholastic Federation added two varsity teams — Laupahoehoe and Kamehameha. The two additional teams brought the BIIF's total to 13, and under the Hawai'i High School Athletic Association formula, the Big Island's number of state berths grew from two to three.

That extra berth put the squeeze on the ILH and MIL, and as this past week has shown, the ILH regular season already was stressful. MPI, Saint Louis and Punahou finished the double round-robin in a tie for first with 11-3 records.

A draw was held Tuesday to determine who would get the bye in the three-team playoff, and the Owls won. Saint Louis rallied to defeat Punahou, 10-9, on Wednesday to earn a spot in yesterday's game.

MPI jumped out to a 6-0 lead after five innings, but the Crusaders rallied for two runs in the sixth and three in the seventh before Kuroda finally ended it by inducing a flyout to first base.

"Saint Louis is a very, very good team, and they can swing the bat," Kuroda said. "It's not uncommon for them to score three, four or five runs just off their bats. For me (in the seventh), it was just about damage control — trying to get outs instead of stopping them from scoring."

Owls starter Conan Young did a good job of the latter, pitching five innings of shutout ball with only one strikeout. He induced 10 flyouts, including nine in the first four innings.

"We actually hit the ball a lot better against Conan today than we did last time," Crusaders coach Scot Paiva said. "He kept us off-balance again and even when we hit him, they just didn't fall. But I've known Conan since he was nine years old, so if anybody was going to beat us, I'm glad it was him."

MPI got Young plenty of offensive support by scoring two runs in the first inning, three in the fourth and one in the fifth. Kip Masuda and Randy Rundgren got RBI singles in the first and the Owls got run-scoring grounders from Chad Takabuki and Kuroda and an RBI single from Chris Goya in the fourth.

Takabuki's run-scoring single in the fifth made it 6-0.

Saint Louis finally scored in the sixth on Johnny Gentry's RBI double and Chester Wilson's delayed steal of home during a rundown. Danny Lee's two-run single and Wilson's sacrifice fly made it 6-5 with two outs in the seventh.

Reach Wes Nakama at wnakama@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2456.

• Saint Louis (12-4) 000 002 3 — 5 10 2
• Mid-Pacific (12-3) 200 310 x — 6 10 1

Danny Lee, Ryan Sasaki (4) and Jowen Murray-Thornton; Conan Young, Jayson Kramer (6), Harry Kuroda (7) and Kip Masuda. W — Young. L — Lee. S — Kuroda.