By Wes Nakama

KAILUA — The youthful Kailua High School baseball team is not waiting for the future to chase championships.

The Surfriders, with only one senior on the roster, held off visiting Roosevelt, 6-3, on Wednesday afternoon to improve to 10-1 and clinch the OIA Eastern Division’s No. 1 seed for next week’s league playoffs. The Rough Riders fell to 8-3 and are one game ahead of Moanalua (7-4) for second place. Roosevelt defeated Na Menehune on March 27, but the two teams will meet again on Saturday at Stevenson Middle School field in the regular season finale.

Meanwhile, Kailua will finish against Kaiser (6-5) on Saturday knowing it already secured the top seed and first-round bye for the OIA tournament, thanks to a pair of three-run innings in the fourth and sixth on Wednesday. The Rough Riders had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning and closed it to 6-3 after two unearned runs in the seventh, but reliever Kaimana Burgo — the lone Surfrider senior — got a strikeout and then a flyout to second to kill the rally and end the game.

“I feel like it’s a good win for us,” said Burgos, who started the game in left field and earned the save after taking the mound in the fifth. “I felt if we just stuck to the game plan and if we stuck together, we would come out with the win.”

Roosevelt had struck first by scoring one run on three singles in the top of the second inning. That 1-0 lead held until two outs in the bottom of the fourth, when Kailua scored three runs on a wild pitch, an RBI groundout by Kalama Carreira and Jayden Hunt’s run-scoring double to the hill in center field.

The Surfriders then scored three more runs in the sixth on a balk, throwing error and RBI squeeze bunt by Sage Tokoro.

“We came out swinging the bats pretty decent, but the execution defensively … it wasn’t our day today,” Roosevelt coach Samee Teixeira said. “(Kailua) is always a great hitting team, and defensively they’ve got their stuff, too. For us, knowing our situation in regards to finishing out the season, our two workhorse relievers have been working the whole season and pitching exceptional games for us, so today was a day to get other guys on the mound and get that third pitcher in just in case that work needs to be done for playoffs. 

“But no matter who we put on the mound, we have faith they’re going to get us by.”

The Rough Riders made it interesting in the top of the seventh, when their leadoff batter reached on an infield error and later scored on Kila Teixeira’s double to center. Roosevelt then made it 6-3 on Tokujiro Wada-Goode’s grounder, but Burgo struck out the next batter and then got a pop-up to second to end the game.

“They started hitting me, but we just had to lock in and focus on our pitches, and once we did, it was good,” said Burgo, a left-hander who committed to Feather River (Quincy, Calif.). 

With it being “Senior Day,” Burgo did not want the spotlight to himself and asked to have scorekeeper/stat girls Lucy White’s and Chloe Ishigo’s poster pictures next to his on the dugout wall, and they also ran around the bases for a final time in front of the home fans, before Burgo did the same.

“It cannot just be me, they’ve been helping out as much as I have,” Burgo said. “You cannot forget them.”

Surfriders coach Corey Ishigo said that was just one example of Burgo’s senior leadership and unselfishness.

“He’s great with everybody else, he’s a good leader, he leads by example,” Ishigo said. “He doesn’t say much, but he just does what he has to do and believes in the program. He’s not a selfish person. Even today, he didn’t ask to start, he never did ask for the ball. He just said, ‘Coach, whenever you need me, I’m ready.’ That’s the kind of team player coaches love to have.”

Phoenix Takara went 3 for 4, Teixeira went 2 for 3 with the RBI and Brayden Moy also went 2 for 3 to lead the Rough Riders.

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