ALWS Game 14: Hawaii wins rain-delayed semifinal over Iowa

After sweating out a tiebreaker just to advance to the American Legion World Series semifinals, Honolulu, Haw., rolled into the 2021 championship with a 9-1 victory Tuesday over Dubuque County, Iowa.

Honolulu (34-1) advances to the 2021 ALWS championship game against defending champion Idaho Falls, Idaho. That game was scheduled for Tuesday night but was postponed to Wednesday due to more bad weather.

Honolulu becomes the fourth Hawaiian team to advance to the ALWS championship game — two other Honolulu teams advanced in 1962 and 1980 and Aiea did so in 1995. The 1980 and 1995 title participants won the title game.

In Tuesday's game that was postponed from Monday due to inclement weather, Dubuque County actually scored first with a run in the bottom of the first inning before Josh Aribal settled in to pitch a five-hitter with four strikeouts.

But Honolulu's Team Central sent 12 to the plate in a six-run third inning and added three more runs in the fourth to punch its ticket to the final.

In the third inning, Honolulu had six hits, two walks, one hit batter and one fielding error in its rally. Alohi Arecchi and Micah Zeller had RBI singles in the inning and D.J. Akiyama slugged a two-run homer.

In the fourth, Ty Yukumoto and Ethan Thomas opened the inning with back-to-back doubles and Akiyama later added a RBI single and Hunter Sasaki a sacrifice fly.

Akiyama (two hits, three RBIs), Sasaki (two hits, one RBI) and Yukumoto (two hits) led Honolulu's 11-hit offense.

For Dubuque County Post 137, which saw its season end at 14-2, Jake Brosius doubled in the first inning and scored on Gavin Guns' two-out RBI single. Brosius had two of his team's five hits.