Wind, Rain Shuffle BIIF Events This Weekend

With a wind advisory up for much of the island and consistent rain falling over East Hawai`i, the Big Island Interscholastic Federation, along with some of its schools, have made changes to various events this weekend.

The BIIF softball championships got underway Friday, but not at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo Softball Field, where large amounts of rain deemed the field unplayable.

The league’s backup plan was right across the street at Waiakea High School, and after a 40 minute delay, play got started under cloudy, cool, and rainy conditions between Kamehameha-Hawai`i and Konawaena in the first of a three-game series to determine the BIIF Division II champion.

At approximately 4:00 p.m., the first of a three-game series between Hilo and Waiakea will be played to help determine the Division I champion.

Waiakea High School will host Saturday’s games as well, starting at 9:00 a.m. with the second game of the Division II championship series. That will be followed by game two of the Division I series. If a third game of either series is needed, it will be played starting at 1:00 p.m.

Meanwhile, Saturday’s league track and field meet that was originally scheduled to be held on the campus of Hawai`i Preparatory Academy has been moved to Konawaena High School because of high winds.

The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for north, east, and interior sections of the island until 6:00 p.m. Saturday. Gusts are forecast to reach 50 miles per hour, which created logistical problems for HPA.

“I was just talking to our maintenance staff this morning and working on getting stuff set up for tomorrow and we really just couldn’t get the big tents up safely and secured for tomorrow,” said athletic director Steve Perry. “Instead of waiting and hoping it dies down a little bit, which we don’t think it’s going to, we were fortunate to have Konawaena available and that they could host.”

Perry said that the tents are used for the scoring and timing system.

Start time for the field events has been moved back an hour to 10:00 a.m. Running events will get underway at 11:00 a.m.

One of the four baseball semifinal doubleheaders has also been postponed due to unplayable conditions. Kamehameha-Hawai`i athletic director Kimo Weaver said that his team’s semifinal series against Honoka`a has been postponed because of unplayable conditions on campus. The doubleheader was supposed to be played Saturday.

The first two games of the three-game series between the Daggers and Warriors has been moved to Tuesday. It is currently scheduled to remain at Kame’eiamoku Field, the campus field at Kamehameha-Hawai`i, and start at 11:00 a.m.. If it is still unplayable by Monday, the games could move to Wong Stadium and start at 3:00 p.m.