HILO — Konawaena junior Ryan Torres-Torioka and his counterpart, Hawaii Prep senior Jayse Bannister, both pitched well enough to win in a tense duel that magnified mistakes.
HILO — Konawaena junior Ryan Torres-Torioka and his counterpart, Hawaii Prep senior Jayse Bannister, both pitched well enough to win in a tense duel that magnified mistakes.
Torres-Torioka made none, at least none that hurt, and fired a two-hitter to lift the Wildcats over Ka Makani 1-0 in the Big Island Interscholastic Federation Division II baseball semifinals on Friday at Wong Stadium.
The Wildcats (12-1) clinched their fifth straight berth in the Hawaii High School Athletic Association tournament and positioned themselves to win a second consecutive BIIF championship.
Ka Makani (8-6) watched their streak of four straight state trips end at the hands of Torres-Torioka, who beat HPA with a four-hitter in a 4-2 win earlier in the season.
The Konawaena right-hander walked three and struck out just two but was helped by a sure-handed defense that committed no errors and turned two double plays.
Catcher Evyn Yamaguchi helped out by throwing out a runner.
Torres-Torioka stranded only two runners, both in the seventh, and pitched to contact, getting 15 groundouts.
Only two balls were flyouts.
Torres-Torioka enjoyed a relatively stress-free sunny day at the ballpark until the seventh.
“I knew I needed to hit my spots against them,” he said. “I made them hit grounders, and I knew my defense would get outs. My curveball was working and getting me out of deep counts.
Bannister went six innings and took a tough loss.
The left-hander allowed a run on three hits and no walks, and he struck out two. He was particularly efficient, throwing just 61 pitches; Torres-Torioka threw 91 pitches.
Konawaena’s only run came in the fourth, when an episode of wildness cost Bannister, who hit leadoff hitter Domonic Morris.
Morris was sacrificed to second and scored on Makana Canda’s RBI single.
Vinny Chang went 2-for-2 for Konawaena, but Canda’s run-scoring single in the fourth was all Torres-Torioka needed.
HPA’s ace put the pitching duel into a neatly packaged nutshell.
“We couldn’t hit Ryan. He had us off-balanced and we couldn’t score,” Bannister said. “We hit into two double plays. That was a big part of the game right there. I felt like I did a pretty good job, good enough to win.”
HPA 000 000 0 — 0 2 1
Konawaena 00 100 x — 1 3 0