It took a moment for Roosevelt senior Mika Emoto to process what she’d just done.
The fifth-ranked Rough Riders had battled back from a five-run deficit to tie No. 2 Leilehua in Friday’s OIA Division I softball tournament semifinal and Emoto came to the plate in the bottom of the seventh with teammate Mari Foster standing on second base.
After falling behind two strikes, Emoto fouled off two more before finding a pitch she could handle. Her liner into right field fell in safely and Foster’s long strides carried her to the plate to give the Rough Riders a 6-5 comeback win and a spot in today’s 7 p.m. final against Campbell at McKinley.
“It’s nerve-racking,” Emoto said. “You don’t even realize you hit it until it’s in the outfield. It’s like, ‘Did I do that?’ ”
Emoto’s walk-off single sent Roosevelt to the OIA championship game for the first time since the Rough Riders captured the league title in 2009. That was also the last time the OIA East claimed the crown, with the West capturing the last eight.
The OIA West went 4-1 against the East in the first two rounds of this year’s tournament, with Roosevelt’s 4-2 win over Pearl City in the quarterfinals on Thursday the exception.
Another all-OIA West final appeared likely after the Mules’ four-run outburst in the fifth inning on Friday.
Leilehua catcher Shea Tammarine — who was pinch-hit for in the second inning — gave the Mules the lead with an RBI single in the fourth and added another in the fifth.
Leilehua starting pitcher Kaena Nistal contributed an RBI single to the rally and held Roosevelt to three singles through four innings.
“We just told them they have to see the ball quicker,” Roosevelt coach Kris Fujii-Dias said of the adjustment going into the bottom of the fifth. “They were a little late early on and we told them shorten the swing, quick hands, let her provide the power and make solid contact.”
Roosevelt, the OIA East top seed, broke through when Kylie Kawamura drilled a two-run single just inside the third-base bag. The Rough Riders loaded the bases with two out and Kani Pitoy emptied them with a double to left-center to tie the game.
Jaeda Cabunoc recovered from her rough fifth inning to retire the Mules in order in the sixth and seventh on 18 pitches, throwing 17 for strikes.
“We found what pitch actually worked,” Cabunoc said after earning the complete-game victory, “(and) our momentum from our hitting, I brought it to the field and it was just in my favor.”
With one out in the seventh, Foster hammered an opposite-field double to right to set up Emoto’s game-winner.
“That’s the good thing about this team,” Fujii-Dias said. “It’s not just one. They all pick each other up. One may be struggling, the other one picks them up. It’s a shared effort and that’s what we strive for.”
Campbell 11, Kapolei 1, 5 innings
Dyllan Sanay-Shiraishi hit a two-run homer in the first inning, Alesia Ranches drove in four runs and the top-ranked Sabers joined Roosevelt in the OIA final with a five-inning rout of the Hurricanes.
Campbell pitcher Chloe Sales retired the first nine batters she faced before Kapolei’s Lili Kaimi Montira led off the top of the fourth inning with a home run. Sales allowed just one more baserunner in a one-hit complete-game victory.
