The 29th annual Stanley Costales Sr. Memorial Baseball Tournament was held Thursday through Saturday in Hilo at Francis Wong Stadium, on the newly-named James “Jimmy” Correa Ballfield.
The preseason tournament, which was put on by Hilo’s Viking Baseball Boosters, gave five BIIF teams — Hilo High, Waiakea High, Pahoa High, Kamehameha Schools – Hawai‘i and Konawaena High — a chance to get looks at each other and test their personel at different positions in a low-stakes context.
Hilo, Waiakea and KS-Hawai‘i also got to play against Nanakuli High, which plays in the O‘ahu Interschoslatic Association’s Division I West league.
The Tribune-Herald spoke to the managers of all of the BIIF teams at the tournament.
Konawaena
The Wildcats are in a rebuilding phase, but still have a strong junior class.
Last season, Konawaena was highly competitive — going 8-2 in the regular season, giving Waiakea and Hilo runs for their money and being the only BIIF DII team to beat KSH.
The Wildcats graduated a few standout seniors last spring — Trez Uemoto, Charlie Kuwada and Trez Uemoto.
Konawaena kicked off the Costales tourney with a 10-0 loss to Waiakea on Thursday.
“We’re young,” manager Aaron Mori said. “Super young. We just had our first test, and (Thursday) kinda showed how young we are. We just gotta be more mentally tough.
“I think we’re pretty even all the way around. We had runners in scoring position, we just couldn’t score. It was tough, we gotta have more timely hitting. Pitching wise, I think we’ll be okay this season.”
This year’s Konawaena squad is almost all juniors, ten of them and three seniors.
Pahoa
The Daggers had a solid run last season, going 4-5 in regular season play before taking Konawaena to game three of the BIIF DII semifinals — but ultimately falling 8-6 in extra innings.
Pahoa has retained nearly all of its roster, as most of its players were sophomores last year. The only 2023 graduate was pitcher and shortstop Shane Sale-Silva.
“The team’s looking good, they’re working hard,” manager Gavein DeMello said. “These games we’ve been getting are a good test for us before the season. It’s the preseason, so we’ve been trying different guys in different positions — and so far, so good.
“Some of the younger guys have improved over the offseason. We’ve been working harder, we started a little bit earlier this year in the weight room.”
The Daggers will star BIIF play in March. Before then, they’ll hit up another preseason tournament on O‘ahu.
DeMello’s goals for this season are for his players to practice resilience and realize their potential.
“For me, I want them to believe in themselves,” he said. “Don’t give up, believe in each other — just keep playing to the end. A lot of times, stuff doesn’t go our way, and we kinda get down — but we just gotta keep our heads up and keep going.”
KS-Hawai‘i
The reigning BIIF DII champions are returning strong, and retaining most of their roster and several key players. KSH graduated prominent players Dylan Hanson, Krysjyn-Kydyn Nakamura and Cross Pola last spring — but has deep senior and juniors classes this season.
The Warriors had a great season last year. They went 7-3 in the regular season, blew out Honoka‘a High 16-1 in game three of the BIIF DII semis and swept Konawaena in the BIIF DII championship.
This year, all the pieces are in place for them to have another winning season.
“Everything’s good, we just gotta find our lineup and pitching rotations,” manager Andy Correa said. “They boys look good, they always work hard.”
The Warriors have been holding voluntary workouts since October, and traveled to Kauai for another preseason tournament last week — where they defeated Kapa‘a High 3-1, fell 4-3 to Kauai High and beat Waimea High 4-1.
Kauai fell 6-5 to Damien High in the DII state title game last year.
“All those teams are evenly matched,” Correa said. “We don’t know who’s gonna come out of that league, but they’re gonna be a contender for the state championship.”
KS-Hawai‘i will get things started early, kicking the season off on Wednesday with a rivalry matchup against Konawaena.
Hilo
The Vikings are also a young squad this year, but with plenty of talent.
“I like what I see this year,” manager Baba Lancaster said. “We’re a young team, but we’re scrappy.
“We’re hitting the ball well. Some of our pitchers are doing good. They need a little bit more work, but that’s what we’re in the tournaments for.”
Hilo kicked off tourney play with an 8-2 win over Nanakuli.
The Vikings’ main task so far has been filling gaps left by the class of 2023. The Vikings graduated five, including Devin Saltiban — one the BIIF’s most terrifying sluggers, who was picked up by the Philadelphia Phillies in the third round of the 2023 MLB Draft.
With the class of 2023 at the helm, Hilo went 12-0 in the regular season before falling by one run to Waiakea in game three of the BIIF DI championship. The Vikings also collected three state championship wins, suffering a 2-1 loss to Campbell High in the quarterfinals before eventually meeting Waiakea again in the fifth-place consolation match, where the Warriors won 15-10.
“A couple of positions are hard to fill, but we’re doing our best,” Lancaster said. “We’ve got a couple seniors who can fill positions, but we got a young, young team this year.”
The Vikings also have a very young rising star, Koa Marzo, who found great success on the mound last year as a freshman.
“He’s somebody to watch,” Lancaster said. “There’ll be a couple other juniors and seniors who’ll be in the spotlight this year too.”
Those names include Legend Lancaster, Dylan Villanueva, Jaylon Geraci, Kamren Agpalza, Boston Kobayashi and Zion Palea. All of whom had some noteworthy performances last season.
The goal this year: win BIIFs and get to state. “That’s everbody’s goal,” Lancaster laughed.
Waiakea
The Warriors are riding two straight BIIF DI titles since the end of the pandemic, and have returned a number of playmakers.
Just like last year, their pitching staff is deep and talented — with retuners including Kaleb Wada, Loren Iwata, Gavin Nishida, Ivor Brooks, Lucas Yamanaka and Kalama Ulibas.
“They boys played well in the first game,” manager Chris Honda said. “You never know how it’s gonna be, but I was proud of our performance yesterday. They executed the fundamentals and put the ball in play. Wada and Nishida pitched a great game — they threw a lot of strikes, which was our main objective (Thursday) for our pitchers, pitch to contact.
“For pitching, we’re trying to work on better command, better pitch-to-strike ratio, changing space and hitting out spots. As far as hitting — less swings and misses, squaring up on balls at a higher percentage and having a plan and approach when we get to the plate, being smarter batters.”
Like Hilo, Waiakea also graduated some stars last spring — including All-BIIF first teamers Josh Ward (catcher) and Devin Garza (infield utility).
“Behind the plate we have four catchers we’re trying out, that’s a big one we’re looking at,” Honda said. “Up the middle, we have several guys who I’m confident can play the position.”
Waiakea’s goal: get better every day.
“Our goal’s of course to compete every day, get better every day,” Honda said, “work harder in practice. We know what the goal is for the season, but we just take it one day at a time and those things’ll happen. Baseball’s a tough game, it’s a game of failure — so we’re trying to play a game of resilience and mental toughness.
“These guys are great ball players, so it’s just back to the basics to get them better.”
On Saturday, Waiakea will scrimmage Waipahu High — then will next head to a tournament on Maui hosted by Baldwin High.