Hilo PONY Tournament

The Hilo Tournament was a lot of fun. We ended up going all the way to the semi-final game. We lost to Maui, who then lost to Windward in the championship game.
Here's a link to the game box scores if you are interested in the details.

We lost our first game against Lihue. We really should have won that game but things just didn't go our way. We left 10 men on base, including 2 bases loaded innings. This put us in the losers bracket, which meant that if we were going to win it all, we'd have to play 6 more games over 4 days. It also meant that our backs were against the wall and one more loss would send us home.



The second game was against the host Hilo team. Our hitters got back into the groove in this game and we won 6-11. The next day would be a double header day, starting at 8 in the morning.
The boys were feeling good and were having a great time in Hilo. They were all getting to know each other a lot better and were having fun, on and off the field.



The first game of the double header was against Makakilo-Kapolei. KAC belted out 15 hits in this game and scored in every inning. The next game would be a rematch against Lihue. We pitched our Ace pitcher in this game. He went the entire game and pitched one of the best games I've seen all season. He had total command of all his pitches and kept the Lihue team off balance at the plate for the entire game. He pitched 7 innings and threw only 67 pitches.

We advanced to see another day. This meant another early game against the winner of Windward vs Maui and then the championship game. By now, the boys were feeling the affects of baseball all day and playing around all night. We almost pulled it off. In the bottom of the 7th, we scored 2 runs to make it 8-5. With 2 outs, we loaded the bases and had our leadoff batter at the plate. But it wasn't meant to be and the game ended there.



So that was that. Our season was over. The boys played great in that tournament. The game against Maui had some spectacular plays. Huge hits... a couple of home runs and triples that were hit to the deep Hilo outfield fence. Great defensive plays... a deep shot to center field that was caught over the shoulder and a diving catch of a line drive to the left field line.

I got to know a lot of the boys a lot better. They are all great kids and I hope to see them again sometime in the future....and that they remember me. :)

The tournament was a great experience. The team played great and I'm proud of what they accomplished. I think we all would have wanted to beat Maui to get a shot at the Windward team but I also think we wanted to win so we could stay together a bit longer.

Hilo, here we come

The KAC Bronco team advanced to the State P.O.N.Y tournament that will be held in Hilo. They beat both the Mililani A and B team to advance.

The games were fairly close, although we never trailed in any time. We ended up winning both games by 3 runs.

Blake didn't do so well at the plate during this tournament, but he played very well in the field, making all the plays that were hit to him.

Congratulations KAC!!! See you all in Hilo.

6th Grade Promotion

June 4th 2009
Iolani School 6th Grade Promotion

The last day of school was the 6th grade promotion at Iolani. This marks the final day in the lower school and a promotion into the upper school campus.
Since Iolani goes from K to 12th grade, this is a pretty momentous occasion for the students, especially the ones that have been there since Kindergarten. They will be going from being the top dogs in the lower school to the newbies at the upper school. They will now have classes in a completely different portion of the campus and are now able to select the classes that they want to take. This basically marks their first steps from being kids to becoming young adults.

During the Promotion ceremony, they announced various awards and accomplishments of the students over the prior year. Blake received one award. An award that we are extremely proud of him....the Headmasters List. This is an overall GPA of 3.5 and above and no grade lower than a B-. He accomplished this while having Football and Baseball practices from after school till sometimes after 7:00pm and then doing 2-3 hours of homework almost every night.

Congratulations Blake

Maia's Second Birthday Party

Maia celebrated her second birthday at Mac 24/7 in the Prince Kuhio hotel.


The theme, as you can see, was Elmo!!!



The food and cake were great. Maia has a very healthy appetite. She ordered the same thing as I did, the Chicken and Waffles, and I'm pretty sure she ate more of it than I did.


Here's one of the dishes that Mac 24/7 is known for. Super sized pancakes.

Play of the Day

Just a quick update on Blake's baseball team. The regular season is over. The Twins took the championship and so our coach is now the head coach of the Tournament Team. We play in the PONY league so there is a qualifier in Waianae next month and a State Tournament in Hilo a week or two after that. The winner of the State tournament will play in California. It's very similar to the Little League World Series...just not as publicized.

So anyway, we are doing everyday practices and 3-4 scrimmages per week for the past 3 weeks now. Blake has been playing pretty well in the field and has been hitting the ball better. He's hitting 0.444 with a 0.667 on base percentage. He only has 9 at bats over 7 games because of substitutions and what not, but still, pretty good. Here's a link to our team page for more stats and info if you are interested.

And now for the Play Of The Day. We were playing a really good team this past Sunday. There are a couple of guys from our Twins team on that team. One of them is at bat in the video. Blake is playing second base. Earlier in the game that player beaned Blake in the helmet during his only at bat. This, I guess, is payback. (FYI They were and still are really good friends)



It's a little hard to see what's going on in the video so here is a little recap. There was 1 out with a man on second and third. The ball was lined to Blake, who had to go the his right and back a little into center field to make a diving catch. He then tossed the ball to the short stop to complete the inning ending double play. Daa da da Daa da da.

Hula

Blake just had his Hula performance for his school. This is his third year taking hula and this year, he finally moved up from the back row, which probably means he's doing better.....finally. If you are wondering why he's taking hula, here is the background story. At his school, from 4th grade, the students have a study hall period, but if you want, you can elect to take dance, orchestra, or choir. We decided to strongly suggest (force) Blake to take hula. The reason being: (1) We thought it would be good for him to take hula to give him some sort of cultural/artistic talent, (2) We heard that a lot of athletes take hula to improve footwork and agility, (3) In 7th grade it is mandatory to take an extra-curricular activity, so this would give him a 3 year head start, (4) And the final and probably the most plausible reason was, we figured he would just fool around during study hall, so he might as well learn something.
So anyway the performance went well and it was the first performance where he actually smiled.




PS. I haven't found a way to allow private blogs to be available to RSS Readers. I think Blogger is working on that but for now, if you want, I can add you to the email notification list when there is a new post. Let me know if you want to be added.

Closing the Gate

I haven't been posting for a while now. The main reason is because I've been really busy with work and baseball. The other reason is that apparently some of Blakes friends have been Googling him and this blog comes up and I guess my posts embarrass him somehow. So, to preserve his privacy and maintain his macho cred, I'm going to only allow you all to view the blog.

I'm probably not going to have time to catch up so I'll give a brief rundown on what we did over the past few months.

• Michelle and I worked at the Iolani Family Fair again this year. We were the chair for the Produce booth again and so we worked both days from opening to closing. Really tiring but very fun. We've been doing this for several years now and have gotten to know a lot of the other people really well.
• The baseball regular season finally ended. The Twins took the league championship. They were undefeated in the league and had only 1 loss and 1 tie during the entire season.
• Blake was selected to the KAC Tournament Team and I'm going to be an assistant coach and Michelle is the team mom again this year. So everyday practices and 2-3 scrimmages over the weekends have started for us.
• Blake had his school hula performance...since this is now a private blog, I'll post pictures. He finally moved up from the back row so some of them are decent.
  

That's all I can think of for now.

PS
I've been told that now that the blog is private, some readers may have problems with accessing it. There may be a way to get around this. Someone is looking into a solution for me. I'll post it when it's ready.