By Wes Nakama
MILILANI — After a painful one-year hiatus from the baseball state tournament, Mililani punched its 2025 ticket early and with authority Thursday afternoon with a 12-4 victory over visiting Roosevelt in OIA quarterfinal action.
Kendall Miyasato and Aukai Araujo-Waiau each blasted a 3-run homer in the bottom of the fifth inning to break open a close game and help the Trojans improve to 9-2 and into Friday’s 6 p.m. semifinal against defending champion Kailua (8-3) at Hans L’Orange Park. Kaiser (9-2) faces Leilehua (8-3) at 3 p.m. in the first semifinal.
Roosevelt fell to 6-6 and into the fifth-place bracket and will play host to Pearl City (7-5) at 3 p.m. Friday at Stevenson Middle School.
The Rough Riders had advanced to the quarterfinals via an eight-inning 3-2 walk-off victory over ‘Aiea on Wednesday, but put themselves in a 2-0 hole in the bottom of the second inning Thursday with a hit batter, walk and a two-base infield error. More Roosevelt mistakes — a wild pitch, infield error and balk — helped Mililani extend the lead to 4-0 in the fourth.
“We knew it was going to be tough, Mililani is the No. 1 (seed) on this (West) side, and they’re always competitive and have great players and great coaching,” said Rough Riders coach Samee Teixeira. “We knew we were the underdogs. The little mistakes can hurt you.”
Roosevelt closed it to 4-1 in the fifth after leadoff batter Luke Tausivi was hit by a pitch with two outs, stole second and scored on Toby Nogawa’s single to left field. But the Trojans blew it open in the bottom of the frame when Miyasato launched a three-run homer over the left field fence, followed by Araujo-Waiau’s three-run blast to left-center one out later that extended the lead to 10-1.
“They had a big win (Wednesday), so our main thing was we can’t take any team lightly,” said Mililani shortstop Malosi Mata’afa-Alferos, who had an RBI single in the fourth inning and a walk, stolen base and run scored in the fifth. “We had to stick with our approach, and just play our game, play hard and the right way.”
Roosevelt got two runs back in the sixth on Bryson Momotomi’s sacrifice fly to left and Kolten Doike’s RBI single to left to cut it to 10-3, but the Trojans stretched it to 12-3 in the bottom half after Kamea Chun’s run-scoring single to right and Ethan Bagasol’s pinch sacrifice fly to left.
“(The Rough Riders) are a well-coached team, Samee and her staff do a great job with them, they compete and don’t give up,” Mililani coach Mark Hirayama said. “Even when we got up a few runs, we still couldn’t really take it for granted that it was over. They just kept fighting and kept putting the ball in play. They do that well.”
Defensively, Trojans starter Kaleb Wada went five innings, allowing just one run (unearned) with four strikeouts and no walks. During one stretch between the second and fifth innings, Wada retired 10 of the 12 batters he faced.
“They had a great game plan to throw us off-balance with their off-speed pitches,” Teixeira said. “For us, we kind of fell into their plan of being too aggressive too early in the court. We just had to be a little more disciplined at the plate.”
Araujo-Waiau finished 3-for-4 with the three-run homer, Chun went 2-for-3 and Hirayama went 1-for-2 with three runs scored. For Roosevelt, Nogawa went 3-for-4 and Dolke went 2-for-3 with the RBI single.
After reaching the state semifinals in 2023 and winning the OIA championship in 2022, Mililani fell short of qualifying for the state tournament last season.
“This was a big win for us, getting that momentum back,” said Mata’afa-Alferos, who signed to play for Oregon next year. “Right after we lost that last game (in 2024), most of us went to go hit (at the batting cages). It was like, ‘Season ended, new season started.’ It was motivation for us.”
