By Wes Nakama

After opening the OIA East softball season with an 8-3 loss at Kaiser three weeks ago, the Kalani bats have awoken in a big way and stayed hot Tuesday afternoon in a 10-5 victory over visiting Moanalua at Kilauea District Park.

Senior shortstop Ashlyn Sera went 3 for-4 with a home run and four RBIs and Naomi Stremick, Layna Faria and Kyla Castro added two hits apiece to lead a 12-hit attack that helped the Falcons improve to 5-1 in the OIA East standings, tied for first place with Kaiser.

Na Menehune fell to 4-1 and into second place, a half-game back. Kalani’s victory sets up Saturday’s rematch with the Cougars in Saturday’s 7 p.m. showdown at McKinley that will be televised live statewide on Spectrum Sports OC16.

In the regular season opener at Kaiser on March 4, the Falcons managed only one hit and struck out nine times against Cougars freshman Makenzie Yokoyama.

“That’s definitely something we’ve been focusing on, is handling the bat and controlling the hits,” Kalani coach Iris Stremick said. “We have cut down our strikeouts a lot, just taking it piece by piece, really focusing on hard line drives which we didn’t have at Kaiser.”

Since then, the Falcons scored 15 runs against Kaimuki, 22 against Castle and then 10 on Tuesday against Moanalua. Kalani also was credited with a forfeit victory over Roosevelt.

On Tuesday, the Falcons wasted no time and quickly took a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on five hits — including doubles by Stremick and Haley Ching — and a sacrifice fly to center field by Emma Fujino. Na Menehune responded with Ramzy Bumagat’s two-run single to cut it to 4-2 in the top of the second, but Kalani struck again in the bottom half by scoring three runs on three more hits, two walks, a bunt sacrifice and Shya Morinaga’s sacrifice fly to right, extending the lead to 7-2.

“All game we were like, ‘C’mon on, let’s keep pushing through,’ ” said Sera, who has committed to play for Pacific Lutheran next year. “We knew we couldn’t back down and take them lightly, because we knew how quickly they could come back and get some base hits and score.”

Moanalua did close it to 7-3 in the fourth inning on Bumagat’s sacrifice fly to center, then made it 7-5 in the fifth after Hunter Jackson’s RBI single and an infield error.

But Kalani extended the lead to 10-5 in the fifth on Sera’s three-run homer over the fence in left-center.

“Even after that home run, I don’t think we’re ever out of the game, I think we always have a chance to come back,” Na Menehune coach Kylee Oshiro said. “I think today, Kalani did everything right. They made the routine plays, they put the ball in play, it fell. And ours’ didn’t. It’s going to be tight between all three teams. We need to practice and work on things we couldn’t execute today, and come back stronger.”

The Falcons were an up-and-coming team the past couple years, advancing to last season’s state quarterfinals. The team now is a veteran group with several third- and fourth-year varsity players.

“We’re upper-classmen heavy, we’re pretty confident that we can do well,” Sera said. “Our coaches have been saying we can control our own destiny. So we can take it far, if we really try and push hard.”