Kamehameha's Nakea Hanohano trots around third base against Mid-Pacific in both team's final regular season game. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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ALA WAI— After witnessing the outcome of the Punahou and Saint Louis game, the Warriors knew what was at stake and from there they controlled their own destiny.

Kamehameha pounced early, but held off a Mid-Pacific rally to win, 9-6 in the third game of an Interscholastic League of Honolulu triple-header at Ala Wai Field in a regular season finale for both teams.

Punahou (9-5), who beat Kamehameha on Friday night, did the Warriors a favor by beating Saint Louis (11-4) in a nine-inning thriller to win, 5-4, and Kamehameha (12-3) made sure they didn't let the opportunity slip away.

"Last night was a struggle and I was trying to get the win for the team," said Nakea Hanohano, the third batter in the lineup who scored three runs and went 3-for-4.

"That's what we talked about last night. It is what it is, we didn't play our best and struggled through it. I said to move on and it's history and we'll come out and play our ball game today. Punahou is hot, but we have to be focused on how we play our game and we have to stick to our plan and have faith in what we're doing," said Kamehameha coach Tom Perkins. 

The Warriors' win clinches one of the league's two state tournament berths to the Wally Yonamine Foundation/HHSAA Division I Baseball State Championships and are the top seed in the ILH postseason tournament starting next week.

"It feels good and our team worked hard for that and it's good to come out with a win," said Hanohano.

"It's good to know we're in it and have one. We're looking to next week to the tournament and focusing on that. It's good to be there," said Perkins, on getting into the state tournament.

Since starting the season 1-5, the Owls have won five of their last nine games to finish 6-9 to end the regular season.

"We played a lot better and we're hitting the ball. We weren't hitting at all. They never quit and it was a learning thing. This is the hardest I've worked and the staff worked in a long time. Give them credit and they really worked at it. We have to let the chips fall," said Mid-Pacific coach Dunn Muramaru.

Kamehameha let their bats do the talking as they pounced on the Owls early on as the Warriors got 12 hits for the game. Kawai Takemura led off with a single and Logan Salcedo drove in a run with a double and Hanohano scored Salcedo with a single. Iokepa Kuewa walked and Lii Pontes' sacrifice RBI brought in Kuewa for an early 4-0 lead.

"That was our job coming into the game making square contact and let the runs come in after that," said Hanohano.

"We wanted to get into our aggressiveness that we were doing in the earlier part of the season. It started off that and we kept going and putting the ball in play and getting bases," said Perkins.

The Owls settled down after the first inning and had an opportunity to score in the second inning but came up empty. Ryne Arita led off the third with a double and Zach Gushiken grounded out to second for a run. Jacob Yoshino was hit by a pitch and scored off of Kyle Layugan's double that sped inches away from the third baseman's glove to close the gap to 4-2.

Hanohano led off with a single and Kuewa's double RBI plated Hanohano. Mid-Pacific got the next two outs until Pontes' single added another Warrior run to make it, 6-2.

Shion Matsushita was tagged for six hits, six runs—all earned and two strikes until Muramaru went to JT Nayvac who pitched 1 2/3 innings and gave up four hits and three earned runs.

Corey Takahashi singled and took advantage of Warrior errors to add a run for the Owls in the fourth. The Warriors committed five total errors for the game.

Chaesten Chon tripled deep to right field and later scored on a wild pitch. Hanohano doubled to right and Kuewa hit his second RBI double of the game as Hanohano scored his third run. This would be the last run scored by the Warriors as Mid-Pacific made a pitching change to bring in Carter Rustad, who pitched 2 2/3 innings and allowed one hit and struck out four.

The game started coming to the Owls as Gushiken and Jacob Yoshino each led off with singles. Jet Uechi plated Gushiken and Yoshino scored off of a wild pitch in the fifth inning to trail, 9-5.

"Give props to Mid-Pacific, they are good at hitting, but we had to keep our head in the game and come back on offense," said Hanohano.

Kamahao Arita pitched five innings for the win despite allowing eight hits and five runs—four earned. Jace Borja pitched one inning to allow a hit, but the run scored was not earned.

Mid-Pacific took advantage of two Kamehameha errors in the inning. Bronson Hakkei reached on an error by the center fielder. Aniya singled, but Wyatt Young lined out to Pontes, who tagged the bag for the second out, but Hakkei scored on the errant throw to third.

"We do the best we can, but we have to keep working on it," said Perkins, on improving their fielding.

Pontes came from first base to the mound for the final inning. Jacob Yoshino grounded out to second, but Layugan singled and Uechi reached on a fielder's choice. The Owls made it interesting as Cale Yoshino reached on the second baseman's error and Uechi got all the way to third. Takahashi grounded to Pontes, but he managed to get the ball to first despite falling to the ground to end the game for the save.