Central East Maui Little League’s Senior (15-16) All-Stars celebrate with their championship banner after winning the West Regional on Wednesday to advance to the Senior League World Series, which starts Saturday in Easley, S.C. Photo courtesy of Central East Maui Little League

The Central East Maui Little League All-Stars are going back to the Senior League World Series — the team from Wailuku won the title in Easley, S.C., in 2019, the last time the event was played due to the pandemic.

The Valley Isle team won the West Regional title in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday with an 18-14 win over the host team, North Oakland/South Oakland, in the championship game.

“They did play well in the tournament,” Maui manager Peter Delima said via phone on Wednesday.

Delima said to bring home another world title, his team has to clean up some things.

“Defensively we have got to protect the ball better,” he said. “We’re hitting well right now … but we cannot score five runs and then give up four runs (in the same inning). We’ve got quite a batch of great pitchers that came out of the (Maui Interscholastic League).”

Delima said he can count on pitching from Logan Kuloloia, Shiloh “Kamole” Gilliland, Halii Dudoit, Nakea Kahalehau, Ziah Chang and Nariyuki Dumlao.

The roster includes players from Baldwin, Kamehameha Maui and Maui high schools.

It is rounded out by Duke Aloy, Glen Arai III, Christian Dominno, Kade Fujioka, Kaleb Gaoiran, Cody Gima, Bransyn Hong, Kaleb Mathias, Jaren Pascual and David Vergel de Dios.

The coaching staff includes Delima, Ronnie Ramirez and Jon Viela.

CEMLL went 5-1 in the tournament — the loss was to Oakland, 4-1 on Monday to end pool play. Maui began the West Regional with a 7-0 win over Rock Springs (Wyo.), an 11-0 win over Summerlin (Nev.) and a 7-0 win over over Nogales (Ariz.) before reaching Wednesday’s championship game with a 4-2 win over Arizona on Tuesday.

The Senior League World Series starts Saturday and Maui will be in the first game of the tournament, against Southwest Regional champion West University from Houston, Texas.

The SLWS runs through Aug. 6.

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.