Aiea Pintos Gallop Away With State PONY Baseball Title

Del.icio.us

The champion Aiea PONY League Pinto Division all-stars and coaches shortly after clinching the state title. Photo from Karen Ohata.

When 9-year-old Ryne Oshiro and his Aiea PONY Pinto all-star teammates played in the Hawaii State Tournament recently, they found little margin for error amid a field of evenly matched teams.

Aiea won four of its five games to eventually win the title. Asked what the difference was to propel him and his teammates over the top, he said, “We had heart - we practiced hard, and we didn’t fool around.”

If anything, Aiea’s PONY Pinto team was “workmanlike.”

“We could have lost any one of the games,” said their head coach Collin Oshiro.“The kids were fortunate to come out ahead in those games and in the end, a 4-1 record was good enough to win the state.”

Although the team positioned itself quickly to play for the championship, there was no direct line to such a stirring finish, according to Collin Oshiro. Like any all-star team, the Aiea PONY Pinto all-stars (7- and 8-year-old division) had to get used to playing with each other, being that they had spent their respective regular seasons on different teams.

“There were a lot of new things for all of them,“said the coach, who was assisted by Garret Matsunami, Weli Alamillo and Joe Trim.“Our players came from four different teams, and our coaches came from three different teams as well. The kids had new coaches, new teammates and in some cases, a totally new position. Not everyone can be ‘The Guy’ on an all-star team. Everyone was dedicated to their new roles, which is part of the gelling process. It took awhile for them to get to know each other and play well together.”

Only Ryne, the coach’s nephew, had competed on an all-star team prior to this summer, according to Collin Oshiro.

Once settling into their roles, however, the Aiea Pintos showed signs of what it was capable of in winning three of five games during an appearance in the Mililani Goodwill Tournament prior to the state tournament. At the state tour-ney, Aiea won hard-fought battles over Waimanalo (23-14), Mililani “B” (6-5) and Mililani “A” (11-6) to make the final versus Kapolei-Makakilo. Although Aiea lost that game 14-8, it rebounded to win a rematch between the teams 12-2 in a winner-take-all tournament finale.

Collin Oshiro praised his team’s poise throughout the tournament, which finished June 24 at Patsy T. Mink Central Oahu Regional Park, as a key contributing factor to his team’s success.

“As one of my assistant coaches was saying, they were gamers - they didn’t let outside things bother them, and they just came out and played. They weren’t afraid of anything. It didn’t seem like there was pressure. They were kind of relaxed. They knew they were a decent team, but not an overpowering team. To them, it was almost an extension of the (recently completed) regular season. It wasn’t a life-or-death thing to them, so they became comfortable real quick.”

In addition to Ryne Oshiro, Aiea’s PONY Pinto all-star team featured Cody Isa, Noah Kolona, Francis Gora, Trey Maldonado, Kaz Tachino, Cade Ohata, Tyler Trim, Braeden Meyer, Ty Matsunami, Patrick Coronas Jr. and Brent Alamillo.

“We had a pretty balanced team, and we had a pretty decent defensive team, which helped us along. We didn’t overpower people, but we were able to get some extra base hits, and we bunched up some hits to score enough runs. We didn’t have all speedsters on the base paths, but they were smart and took what they could get. It was a combination of solid defense and consistent hitting.”