Castle Prepares For Strong Moanalua Team Wednesday
By Jack Danilewicz
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Castle High catcher Lyle Kitagawa. Photo by Nathalie Walker,
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It won’t be hard for Joe Tom to stay true this week to the “one game at a time” concept he has always lived by as Castle’s head baseball coach.
Indeed, with the tougher portion of the Knights’ schedule having arrived, Tom knows his team’s focus will have to be sharp in the coming days.
“There are a lot of teams in the East that are good,” said Tom, whose team took a 3-0-1 record into last Saturday’s OIA East Division encounter with Kalaheo. “Pitching, defense and consistency will be very instrumental in the stretch run. The Moanalua game (on Wednesday) is going to be tough. They have real good pitching and, defensively, they’re solid. It’s always a good ballgame with them. We’ll have to play a pretty tight game. We can’t let them have extra base-runners because of mistakes.”
As the Knights reached the midway point of their regular season over the weekend, they were largely on schedule to reach their goal of winning the East. A 7-7 tie with Roosevelt March 20 remained the only blemish on their record as of late last week. Castle’s wins have come versus Kaimuki (20-0), McKinley (5-3) and Kahuku (11-1). Only Kailua (5-0) and Kaiser (3-0) had better records than the Knights, who still have games remaining with both of those schools. Roosevelt (3-0-1), Kalani (3-1) and Moanalua (3-1) are also very much in the mix, making Wednesday’s matchup with Na Menehune arguably Castle’s biggest game to date.
Pitching and defense have carried Castle so far this season, a trend they hope continues this week. The Knights’ collective earned run average was just 1.88 through four regular-season games.
“Everything starts with pitching and defense,” said Tom, who coached the Knights to a third-place finish in the Wally Yonamine Foundation State Baseball Tournament last May. “The pitching has steadily improved - we’ve had some real good outings lately. Pulama (Silva), Kainoa (Tom), Codey (Cabael) and Josh (Serrano) have all done really well. We’ve cut down on our walks (since pre-season), and we’re hitting our spots a little better.”
Silva threw a one-hitter in Castle’s win over Kahuku last week and joined Coby Agres and Tom in collecting two hits apiece for the team, offensively. Castle had produced 43 runs in all through its first four games and had a team batting average of .337 in that span. In addition to Cabael, Tom and Silva, Tom cited the offensive play of Lyle Kitagawa, the team’s veteran catcher.
“They’ve been the mainstays of our offense so far,” Tom said of the aforementioned group. “We’ll be facing some of the top pitchers coming up, but our kids are confident. Our offense is coming around. Now, we just need to be a little more consistent and manufacture runs a little better.
“Team chemistry has been real good - it’s a terrific group of kids,” he added.“The kids have stepped up. Everyone’s fighting hard and striving to win.”
Following Castle’s game with Moanalua Wednesday, the Knights still have games remaining with Farrington (on Saturday), Kailua (April 18), Kaiser (April 21) and Kalani (April 25). The Kalani-Castle game has been moved to Central Oahu Regional Park and will be shown on statewide television by Oceanic 16.
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