Young Falcon Team Aims For Summer League Experience

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Kalani High baseball coach Shannon Hirai is expecting the current American Legion League season to do more for his Falcons than just expose them to tough competition.

The 18-game schedule also figures to go a long way toward improving their cohesiveness.

“The summer will be big for us,” Hirai said.“This is next year’s team. With no seniors, we’ll be young, but we do have some kids with varsity experience, and that’s a good thing. This group gets along better than last year’s team, and they don’t make excuses when they make a mistake. They seem closer, and they played together better.”

The Falcons are coming off yet another stellar spring season, which saw them finish 10-6 en route to earning a berth in the Wally Yonamine Foundation State Baseball Tournament. The bulk of that Kalani team completed its eligibility last month, giving the Falcons a very different look May 20 when they began their ALL Season.

Kalani took a 1-3 record into the weekend, having already battled one of the league’s toughest schedules to date, with games against state tournament runner-up Pearl City and ILH-power Mid-Pacific, among others.

“We’ve been pretty competitive in all the games so far,” said Hirai, whose team won the ALL state tournament en route to a berth in the National Regionals in Albuquerque, N.M., last summer.“Pitching-wise, and defensively, we’ve kept up (with the Falcons’ play in the spring). Our downfall in American Legion has been our hitting.”

Defensively, one of the Falcons’ strengths should be up the middle with juniors-to-be Jake Massey and Jordan Wong at shortstop and second base, respectively. Outfielder/pitcher Wataru Noguchi and pitcher Dillon Matsuda have also stepped into leadership roles, according to Hirai.

“We’ve turned over 10 double plays already - we had four against an all-college team (Pearl City) - and we’ve got some (pitching) arms. Jake’s been playing lights-out at shortstop for us, and Jordan started (in the infield) as a freshman, so he’s played in big games before. Waturu started as a freshman for us, and he’s back in the outfield. Dillon should be one of our top two pitchers next year.

He probably has the most potential arm-strength-wise, and he’s pitched in some big games, like Kaiser.”

Solid pitching has been a Falcon trademark in recent years, and Hirai sees that continuing. Opposing teams hit just .193 versus Kalani during the OIA season.Among the upand-comers on the pitching staff are junior-to-be Sean Nagaoka and sophomore-to-be Kiel Odo.Also in the fold is Saint Louis transfer Peter Soares, who could have an immediate impact, according to Hirai.

One priority as they look ahead to 2008 will be a renewed commitment to the off-season weight training program, which Hirai thinks will go a long way in improving Kalani’s output at the plate. Kalani batted .325 as a team this spring.

“We need to get stronger. It’s not so much a matter of putting the ball into play, but that we’re weak right now compared to other teams. We’ll begin (off-season training) after American Legion.”

Hirai also welcomed 15 incoming freshmen to the program’s AAU Summer Team, one of the biggest classes in years.“We’re pretty excited about that,” he said.

The ALL State Tournament will run July 16-20.