It was a hot, windless day in Ewa Beach on Wednesday, when Mililani defeated Campbell 7-2 in an Oahu Interscholastic Association baseball game.
But the bat-powered wind stirred up a bit due to a bunch of strikeouts by both sides. There were a handful of batters caught looking, but of the 19 that were punched out, most were creating the slight breeze by swinging away.
So, let’s hand it to the pitchers, shall we? Trojans southpaw Koa Eastlack was immense and could have pitched a complete game, but was pulled after four innings with a 7-0 lead. He struck out nine of the 12 possible outs of the 17 batters he faced.
Then there was Campbell reliever Dylan Florentin, who had one so-so inning where he gave up two runs on two hits, but retired all 13 other batters he faced in the other of his 5 1/3 innings. He had 1-2-3 innings in the second, fourth, fifth and sixth.
Along the way, Florentin — the 130-pound junior who was hitting the corners with fastballs, curveballs and change-ups — struck out six of the 19 batters he faced.
So, against those two pitchers, that’s 15 of 36 batters going down on strikes.
But there’s more. Four other pitchers in the game — Sabers starter Jamin Kalaola and reliever Dustin Abellanida, and Trojans relievers Justin Ogasawara and Keolu Ramos — all had one strikeout.
So, in the end, there were 62 batters (31 by each team) with 19 strikeouts (11 by Campbell batters and eight by Mililani hitters), a .326 ratio on the Ewa Beach Wind Farm.
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