Division II deserves better

State semifinalists should get chance to play on big stage

ROBERT COLLIAS, Between the Lines
HONOLULU

The 50th state’s 50th state baseball tournament has a Division II level for the first time.

In an event that began in 1959 — the first two championships were won by Baldwin High School — the Hawaii High School Athletic Association has given small schools their chance to shine in the spotlight as they play for a state title.

Sort of.

With 17 of 18 games in the tournament being played at Central Oahu Regional Park — where the scoreboards didn’t run, the only field with lights had only about half of them working and there was no press box for scorekeepers, public-address announcers and, yes, media guys like me — well, it hardly felt like a state tournament.

Before Kauai’s 1-0 victory over St. Anthony on Saturday, neither of the schools in the Division II final had ever won a state team title in any sport. In fact, the three-team Kauai Interscholastic Federation had won only one team title ever — the 1990 softball crown claimed by Waimea.

So, the fact that the Trojans and Red Raiders earned their way to the championship game at the University of Hawaii’s Les Murakami Stadium was huge for them.

Heck, the tournament also offered a chance for a Molokai team, which is on its third coach in less than a calendar year and second this season, to recapture some of the glory it enjoyed while winning state titles in 1999 and 2000.

The Division II level has taken away the ‘‘Hoosiers’’ feeling those two teams had while beating the state’s largest powers, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime (albeit back-to-back) experience.

It is fitting that current Molokai senior pitcher-infielder Kaden Tabil can play in a state tournament, as his cousin — 2000 state player of the year Apana Nakayama — did twice. With the team’s 2008 existence in question less than a week before the season because no coach could be found, the Farmers’ semifinal appearance was nothing less than remarkable.

It feels right that communities like Lihue can come cheer on their teams in a state title game, and not expect it to be the only time in their generation that it will happen.

This is the first go-round with Division II baseball, but the D-II concept in Hawaii has been around since it began in football in 2002.

That makes it a little curious why this event had to feel overlooked until Kauai and

St. Anthony finally reached the spotlight of Murakami Stadium and statewide television coverage on OC-16.

At the pretournament coaches meeting, D-II teams were not given parking passes for the D-I event — and anyone who has ever tried to park on the lower campus knows that makes things tough. Before the St. Anthony-Kalaheo semifinal Friday, the field was not graded because of time concerns — the sun was already fading behind the Waianae Mountain Range.

That St. Anthony game also didn’t have a scorekeeper from the state association.

It makes sense that the bulk of the D-II tournament would be played somewhere like Central Oahu Regional Park (which does, by the way, have media facilities for softball), but why not put the semifinals in Murakami Stadium instead of scheduling them to be played simultaneously on adjacent fields?

Move Friday’s three D-I consolation games from Murakami Stadium to CORP, and put all four championship semifinals at a place where folks will want to watch them.

Admission was $9 for adults to Murakami Stadium and free at CORP. Trust me, that was right in line with the quality of facilities — the only restrooms near the baseball fields require a round-trip hike of about a half-mile, and the only refreshments were out of the back of a van — but why not give the paying customers championship-round action instead of 60 percent of the day being taken up by consolation play?

And here is another suggestion: Why not stagger the D-I and D-II baseball events by a week? Or move one to Maehara Stadium in Wailuku?

The event is, after all, sponsored by Maui-born Wally Yonamine’s foundation.

The state’s Division I boys volleyball tournament will be played on the Valley Isle this week, while the D-II event will be on Oahu, so this is not an unheard-of concept.

Stories abound at every state tournament, and this year is no different — Maui High’s run to the semifinals as MIL champion for the first time in a decade, four-time defending champion Punahou’s survival act against Roosevelt in the D-I quarterfinals, the final appearances of MIL stars Skyler Cabacungan, Michael Jahns and others, the significant presence of former Kihei Little League players on all three Maui teams in the event.

One of the story lines should not, however, be the fans of the smaller teams questioning how much the state association cares about them because they were placed in a venue that offered nothing more than a chain-link-fence field.

Since this is the first time, I’ll give the powers that be a pass for now. But let’s take this diamond in the rough and make it shine like it should.

• Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com