Marauders Looking For Leader During Summer Ball Play

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The Waipahu baseball program lost more than offense and defense when Tryton Gante, Kaimi Haina and Ignatius Mackenzie completed their eligibility a few weeks back at the Division II State Baseball Tournament. The Marauders also lost a lot in the leadership department, according to longtime head coach Milton Takenaka.

“Hopefully, we can find someone this summer who can be a leader,“said Takenaka, whose Marauders open their American Legion League season at 4:30 p.m. today (May 27) at home versus Kaiser. “We’ll be relatively young next year, so we need a senior to step up. What Tryton, Kaimi and Iggy brought was leadership to the team.”

Not to mention a lot of victories.Waipahu won a second consecutive OIA title April 24 by defeating Radford in the tournament’s championship game. The Marauders went on to finish sixth in the state, having losing to eventual champion Maryknoll in the quarter-finals. All together, Waipahu went 24-5-2 overall during the past two seasons with Gante, Haina and Mackenzie in the lineup. (12-3)

The trio all will compete on Waipahu’s ALL team this summer as they work toward their college careers. Haina is headed to Menlo College, where he could possibly play football and baseball. Gante and Mackenzie are both headed to Division II Indiana Tech to play baseball.

Takenaka also expected to possibly add three or four players from Kamehameha to his summer squad, but his roster hadn’t been finalized as of late last week.

Above all, Takenaka will use the summer to bring along returnees in preparation for next spring’s official prep season. Among the returning players for Waipahu this summer are sophomores-to-be Jarinn Abreu and Drake Yoshioka and senior-to-be Sam Chee.

Replacing Mackenzie behind the plate is one challenge the team eventually will face, although they’ll have his services this summer. And although Haina and Gante are locks in the pitching rotation, the rest of the Marauders’ staff for its ALL play is still a question mark.

“Right now, we’re still not sure what we have pitching-wise, so that could be a weakness. Offense will be our strength. We have some kids who can run, and hopefully we can come on with the bats. We should be competitive.”

As in past years, the ALL will employ only wood bats up until mid-season as the league strives to maximize its players’ batting technique. The state tournament begins in early July with Hawaii’s overall winner moving on to the Western Regionals on the Mainland later that month.