Friday, Jan. 18, 2007 Update

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of seeing one of the best young softball pitchers in the ILH, if not the state. Keiki Carlos is a 7th grader on the Mid-Pacific Intermediate softball time. Wow! I was looking forward to a good, competitive game with our Intermediate Black team. Our Black team is solid. They played well all season and have a lot of talent. I was truly shocked to see them shut down the way they were. Keiki Carlos, a name to remember for all you softball fans. The final score, 8-1 for Mid-Pacific. The Owls truly deserve the Intermediate ILH Championship this year.

On Wednesday, it was the highly anticipated match up between the Iolani Varsity softball team and St. Francis. St. Francis was in first place with 2 losses, while Iolani was in second with 3 losses. A week ago, after Iolani had been dominated by Punahou, the prospects for a state berth looked bleak. But, after a rebound win over Kamehameha and an upset win by Punahou over St. Francis, Iolani was still hanging around. If the Raiders could somehow beat St. Francis, they would be in a tie for first. This was a huge game!

Raider pitcher, Kelly Imada, was on and kept the St. Francis batters off balance all day. And when they did connect (which they did a few times) for a good hit, the Raider outfield was able to run it down. And the Raider bats sizzled on this day, led by Jana Tokuhama who was 4-4. Final score was 7-0. This game certainly put me in a good mood! Thank you, girls.:)

By the way, this team will play Maryknoll on Saturday at CORP if you'd like to see them in person. If you can't make it out to CORP, the game will be televised with Bob Hogue behind the mike!

On Thursday, I moved over to Punahou to cover the Iolani JV Softball team as they played Punahou. The Raiders are having a superb season, only losing once, and currently atop the ILH JV ranks. The Puns are struggling, but Iolani-Punahou matches in any sport are almost always worth the price of admission, so I tend to give them priority when making my schedule.

The Raiders weren't totally sharp, as there were a few uncharacteristic errors, but they were up to the task, led by the superb hitting of Keli Umeda who hit with power and timeliness. Final score, 8-5, Raiders.