There’s More to the Game Than The Swing
By Jack Danilewicz
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS | Share
Del.icio.us
Kailua’s Nathan ‘Cowboy’
Alvarado gets in some batting
practice as the Surfriders aim
at another playoff run. Photo
by Byron Lee, staff
photographer.
In the world of prep baseball, champions are crowned in May, a fact not lost on Kailua coach Corey Ishigo, whose teams have had a knack over the years for playing their best baseball when it counted most.
But while the month of May has belonged largely to the Surfriders in recent years, the by-product of high expectations is that pressure comes from within rather than from without.
“Sometimes we think so much, we can’t perform on the field,“Ishigo said of his team. “They’re a good group of kids. They listen and try to do what we ask of them, but it hasn’t looked like we’ve been making progress lately. We’re behind schedule. Our guys have been putting a lot of pressure on themselves and trying to do too much. Sometimes I’ve felt like we’ve over-coached them. Maybe we have to just let ‘em play. Hopefully, it’s correctable. That’s our challenge.”
While proud of Kailua’s baseball tradition, Ishigo stopped short of saying it gives the Surfriders extra confidence heading into the post-season.
“It’s the players from previous teams that did it,” he said.“It’s one of the problems we’re dealing with now (in trying to live up to expectations).”
The Surfriders host Farrington on Wednesday (4 p.m.) to conclude their regular season and then set their sites on the Oahu Interscholastic Association playoffs, which begin next week. Kailua has won five of the last six OIA titles under Ishigo including last season, when the Surfriders finished second in the Eastern Division (to Kalani) before regrouping to win the league’s post season.The top five teams from the OIA qualify for the Wally Yonamine State Baseball Tournament, which is set to take place May 17-20 at Les Murakami Stadium on the University of Hawaii campus.
Kailua, which took a 6-2 mark into its game with Castle last Saturday, is battling for a favorable seeding for the OIA’s post-season. Pairings for the tournament were to be announced early next week. As he looked ahead to the post-season late last week, Ishigo stressed his team’s need to improve in the consistency department.
“We haven’t put it all together yet,” said Ishigo, who led Kailua to the 2003 state championship. “Sometimes our defense is really good, and sometimes the pitching is good,and sometimes we’re a good offensive team.Against (East front-runner) Kaiser, we didn’t play any defense (in an 11-5 loss). We had eleven hits, but we had four errors. We don’t know what happened because we’re not that bad of a defense.”
Three seniors - outfielder Keli’i Klobucar, short stop/pitcher Mike D’Alessio and second baseman Aaron Kunioka - have been among the Surfriders’leaders to date. Individually,the Surfriders have seen their production spread about this spring.
“We’ve played in spurts,” Ishigo said. “Guys have looked good one day and horrible the next. Our offense isn’t doing as well as we would like it to.Some days we’re real good, and at other times it looks like we’ve never played baseball before. We will see if this team has the talent or not.”
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
