By Wes Nakama

Facing its toughest test of the ILH season so far, Punahou held off visiting Kamehameha, 4-2, in tense softball action Thursday afternoon.

Senior pitcher Paige Brunn scattered seven hits and got a key strikeout to end the game with the bases loaded in the top of the seventh as the Buff ‘n Blue improved to 7-0 in league play. The Warriors, who lost, 10-0, in six innings at Punahou last Tuesday, fell to 5-3 but remain in second place.

So although the Buff ‘n Blue have a three-game lead with five games remaining … the race is not quite over and Kamehameha has shown marked improvement.

“They played well, they were excited and played with energy all game long,” Punahou coach Boy Eldredge said of the Warriors. “We’re somewhat comfortable, because we’re three games up with five to play. But we know that Kamehameha is going to give us a run anytime we play them.”

The Buff ‘n Blue escaped a bases-loaded jam in the top of the first inning, then took a 2-0 lead in the bottom half on Sydney Capello’s two-run single to left field. They made it 3-0 in the third on Taimane Mata’afa’s RBI single to left, but the Warriors quickly cut it to 3-2 in the top of the fourth on Alexis Ahlo-Garcia’s towering two-out, two-run homer over the fence in left-center field.

“We could call it a ‘mistake,’ but it really wasn’t,” Eldredge said of the home run pitch. “Ahlo-Garcia just got her bat on the ball, we were beating her inside (previously), so it wasn’t like we did something different. It was just a good swing on a good pitch.”

Brunn then got the next batter on a flyout to center to end the inning.

Brunn, a fourth-year varsity pitcher, said she has learned that such home runs will happen but the key is to limit them to isolated incidents and not compound them.   

“It’s super important to just flush it, because I know we can get it back and score more, and my defense got me,” Brunn said. “I just had to be ready for them, rather than getting down on myself. I gotta pick myself for my team, because they’re relying on me.”

Punahou did get an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth after three straight singles, capped by Austen Kinney’s RBI grounder to center field to make it 4-2.

In the top of the seventh, after Kamehameha loaded the bases with two singles and a walk, Brunn struck out the next batter on a 1-2 fastball down and away to end the rally and the game.

“It was too close (to let go),” Warriors coach Mark Lyman said of the final pitch. “We have to (swing and) fight that off.”

Brunn said she focused on throwing strikes in that last at-bat, knowing a walk would make it 4-3 and advance the tying run to third.

“I just wanted to hit strikes, and keep it low so my defense could back me up and get the out,” Brunn said. “I have confidence in them, they could do it.”

As for Kamehameha, Lyman said the team’s confidence is up despite the narrow loss, having rebounded from last Tuesday’s 10-0 defeat to run off four straight victories before Thursday.

“We got together and they’re starting to figure themselves out,” Lyman said. “They’re learning, and doing more of what we’re asking them to do, and it’s starting to show a little bit more. They have a good fight in them, too, and they didn’t want what happened last time to happen again. So they did a good job today.”