Still trying to absorb what I just saw at Rainbow Wahine Stadium, which had to be one of the greatest pitching duels in softball state tournament history.

Shoot, if not for two Moanalua errors in the top of the 10th inning, we might still be at the stadium watching Amber Waracka and Sarah Robinson match strikeout for strikeout. In all my years of watching baseball and softball, I have never seen two pitchers combine for 32 strikeouts and only one walk.

Quite a display.

From the very beginning, you could sense we would be in for a great night of pitching. Both struck out the side in the first inning, and you could see the hitters flailing. Through the first two innings, Waracka had five Ks, Robinson four. After three innings, they had six each.

Robinson struck out the side again in the fifth, giving her 10 ks. Waracka fanned two batters in both the fifth and sixth innings, giving her 11.

Robinson got two more in the eighth, putting her at 13. Waracka had two Ks each in the eighth and ninth, giving her 16.

Even that late in the game, both pitchers had surprising velocity and the fastballs were popping into the catcher’s mitt loudly. Robinson’s control was so sharp, she ran a three-ball count only four times out of 34 batters, three times in the fourth. Waracka ran a three-ball count only three times, one of them resulting in the third-inning walk.

Waracka fooled a few batters with a great change-up; Robinson mostly just threw it past the Warriors.

As in many cases in extra-inning pitching duels, ultimately the game was decided by errors. Both teams complemented the awesome pitching with solid, errorless defense for nine innings. But usually it’s only a matter of time before somebody makes an error, and Moanalua made theirs first.

When Amber Morisako hit a one-out single to left, the fielder did not field it cleanly, but there still was minimal harm done. But when her cutoff throw sailed over the second baseman’s head, that allowed Morisako to advance to second.

“That was the momentum we needed,” Waracka said. “I had so much trust in my teammates that we could get the run in, and they were awesome.”

Dara Pagaduan, a four-year veteran, got pinch runner Leiana Naki-Kaonohi to third base with a fly ball to right, and Melissa Awa brought her home with a hard-hit grounder to second that was mishandled. It was a tough error, because the second baseman had to quickly move to her left to get to the ball, and the ball came in kind of hot.

And anyway, as much as the errors, it was Moanalua’s lack of base runners (6, out of 34 plate appearances) that ultimately cost it the game. It was a team loss, and shouldn’t be blamed on any one or two persons.

It was a tough loss, but a great game to watch from a fan’s viewpoint. As Waracka said, every pitch was huge the entire game.

Considering the magnitude of the game and the amazing display of pitching, high school softball doesn’t get much better than that.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 2:34 am and is filed under Prep Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.