Persistent wet weather forced the postponement of Saturday’s Big Island Interscholastic Federation baseball matchup between the Konawaena Wildcats and Hilo Vikings.
Hard rain began falling 35 minutes before the scheduled 1:00 p.m. first pitch, pushing both teams into their dugouts in the middle of their warmups. After 50 minutes of steady rain, conditions improved and both teams shared in the responsibilities of cleaning up the field, especially focusing on unsafe areas along the left field line and throughout the infield.
Following a rain delay that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, play got underway. Konawaena’s Ryan Torres-Torioka reached base on a walk from Kian Kurokawa and was stranded on third base to end the visiting half of the first inning.
Heavy rain returned in the bottom of the inning, where lead-off batter Tyler Higa reached on a seven-pitch walk against Kona’s Shelton Grace. Two pitches later, he stole second base on a pitch that slipped out of Grace’s hand and missed high of the plate. The right-hander’s next pitch also sailed high and fluttered to the backstop, allowing Higa to take third base. Home plate umpire Kenn Nagasawa stopped the game again, 11 minutes after play started, for the second and final time.
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At 2:55 p.m., both coaches joined the game umpires and surveyed the field before deciding that the conditions would not improve enough to allow the game to continue.
According to Hilo athletic director Sondra Lundvick, the game has been moved to Monday at 3:00 p.m. at Wong Stadium. The game can be heard on ESPN Radio and ESPNHawaii.com.
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