WAIPAHU — The North Shore was pounding yesterday.

Not the waves, but the bats of the Honu, who had seven of their 10 hits go for extra bases in a 9-3 rout of West Oahu in Hawaii Winter Baseball at Hans L'Orange Park.

The Honu (9-4) had three solo home runs and three of their four doubles drove in five runs to support the quality start of Brett Sinkbeil to complete the three-game series sweep.

"You don't want to pinpoint one thing or another, but they just look relaxed at the plate," Honu manager Kevin Bradshaw said of his team's hitters. "They were getting good hitter's counts and they hit the fastball. You're not going to hit a good breaking ball anyway, so we're sitting on the fastball and they're hitting them hard."

Sinkbeil (1-0), a 6-foot-2, 170-pound right-hander in the Florida Marlins organization, continued to pitch well in the league. He allowed a run, three hits and walk with two strikeouts in five innings, his longest stint of the season.

Sinkbeil threw 78 pitches, 47 for strikes, and got nine grounders to account for 10 outs. He was able to spot his fastball, but said he had better stuff in his previous outing.

"But anytime I can get ground balls, I'll take 'em," he said.

Added Bradshaw: "He was just off a little bit, mechanically, but he was able to make that adjustment to help us out."

But Sinkbeil was pleased to get extended in this outing.

"It felt good to finally get a little breathing room on my pitch count," said Sinkbeil, whose earned run average is 1.64 in 11 innings in three starts. "They've been kind of limiting me my first few starts here, so it felt good to go a little deeper in the game."

The Canefires (2-10-1) took a short-lived 1-0 lead in the first after Jeff Bianchi walked with one out, stole second, stayed there after a ground out to third and scored on Joshua Bell's single off Sinkbeil.

But the Honu used the first of their longballs off CaneFires' starter Erik Stiller (1-1) when Mat Gamel led off the second with a line drive home run to right to tie the game at 1. Gamel's fourth homer of the season pulled him into a tie for the league lead with teammate Jeramy Laster.

Then with two outs in the third, Chris Valaika and Stephen Chapman hit back-to-back homers off Stiller to take a 3-1 lead.

"It's great to finally get one under my belt," said Valaika, who was 3 for 4. "I haven't been really swinging too well around here, but I felt really good around the plate today and hopefully I can keep it going."

A two-run double by Lou Santangelo off reliever Neil Wagner in the fifth increased North Shore's lead to 5-1.

North Shore made it 6-1 when Laster grounded into an RBI force play against Wagner; the run was unearned because an error prolonged the inning.

The CaneFires cut their deficit in half in the top of the seventh when K.C. Herren tripled and scored on Ian Gac's two-run home run to left off Sean Walker, who followed Sinkbeil with two innings.

But the Honu continued to plaster the ball. An RBI double by Jonathan Lucroy was followed by a two-run double by Laster in the seventh off Jose Marte that made it 9-3. Those runs also were unearned because of a two-out error.

HONOLULU 5, WAIKIKI 2

Ryohei Tanaka pitched five strong innings and Argenis Diaz drove in two runs to lead the Sharks (7-5-1) in the nightcap.

Tanaka (1-0) gave up a run and four hits while striking out five. Daniel Bard added two scoreless innings of relief, while Katsuyuki Aihara gave up a run in one inning. Chad Thall pitched a perfect ninth for his first save.

BeachBoys' starter Shane Lindsay (0-2) surrendered three runs in 2 1/3 innings.

Emmanuel Garcia had two hits for the BeachBoys (7-6), who dropped a half-game behind the Sharks in the East.

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.