Sacramento State’s Wehiwa Aloy bats during a game against San Jose State on March 22. Aloy, a 2022 graduate of Baldwin High School, leads the Hornets in several offensive statistical categories, including batting average (.363), runs (56), hits (73) and slugging percentage (.647). SACRAMENTO STATE ATHLETICS photos
Wehiwa Aloy’s baseball life is blazing along at warp speed right now.
A peek at his statistics as a freshman at Sacramento State University shows exactly how fast things are moving for the 2022 Baldwin High School graduate.
With 48 starts at shortstop in 49 games played, he leads the 25-24 Hornets in batting average (.363), runs (56), hits (73), doubles (12), triples (4) and slugging percentage (.647), and is second in RBIs (39) and home runs (12).
“I’m having a lot of fun, it’s way different than high school and the competition over here is way better,” Aloy said between class and practice on Monday. “It forces you to play at a higher level.”
After missing his sophomore and junior seasons for Baldwin due to the pandemic, he led the Bears to the 2022 state title game and was voted Maui Interscholastic League Player of the Year by the league’s coaches.
Wehiwa Aloy is greeted at home plate after hitting a home run against the University of St. Thomas on Feb. 25.
Moments after Baldwin 3-2 loss to Waiakea in the 2022 state championship game, Aloy started thinking about college baseball. He left for college summer league play just days after graduation.
He played the role of soothsayer in his post-game comments last May at Maehara Stadium.
“We definitely set high standards for these boys so that next year they can be in this again,” Aloy said then, one year before the Bears did advance to their second straight state final, a 5-4 loss last week to Kamehameha Kapalama.
In the next breath in that interview a year ago, the soft-spoken Aloy said that college baseball couldn’t arrive fast enough.
“I’m looking forward to it, man,” he said. “It’s the next step in my career.”
After the Hornets’ season ends — they would need to win the Western Athletic Conference tournament, set for May 23-27, to advance to an NCAA regional — he is on his way to the prestigious Cape Cod League.
His father Jamie Aloy, a Baldwin graduate and assistant coach, was the first from the MIL to play in the Cape when he did so during his career at the University of Hawaii in the late 1990s. Maui High graduate Mark Karaviotis played in the Cape Cod League in 2015 when he was at Oregon.
Wehiwa Aloy has been a standout all the way up the ladder, from Little League to where he is now, but his freshman numbers are eye-popping.
His 130 total bases are 24 more than second best for the Hornets, he has 18 more hits than anyone else on the roster, and he has scored eight more runs than the next-best on the list.
He had a triple and a single against Seattle University pitcher Luke Alwood, a freshman from Maui High, two weeks ago in Bellevue, Wash.
Aloy said he is not surprised at his success as a true freshman.
“Hard work and getting stronger has really helped me so far and just keeps paying off,” he said, adding that the transition to college baseball “was kind of easy because I was up here playing summer ball against summer teams around here and that has helped me because it led me into this college season. … It let me have a taste of what it would be like for the season and it has helped me ever since.”
UH was on his wish list to play at and when that didn’t work out, Wehiwa Aloy said, “That stung a little bit, but I think I’m good where I’m at.”
Sacramento State coach Reggie Christiansen said he has enjoyed watching Aloy’s stunning first season for the Hornets.
“He’s certainly been fun to be around every day and he’s certainly having a great year,” Christiansen said. “Our last shortstop was a kid named Keith Torres from Saint Louis High School — he was our shortstop for five years, so we’ve had a Hawaiian at shortstop for six straight years now.
“I went to Menlo College, played baseball there, and half of our student-athletes, it felt like, were from Hawaii, so I have some good friends who are from Hawaii. I certainly understand the culture and the baseball part, the kids, they play hard.”
Baldwin coach Craig Okita is a Baldwin graduate who played collegiately at UH-Hilo. He is beyond impressed — and somewhat surprised — with the season Wehiwa Aloy is enjoying.
“Yeah, definitely,” Okita said. “As a freshman to go out there and to do what he’s done, to put up the numbers that he’s done — I knew Wehiwa would become a very good Division I baseball player. I didn’t think it would be that fast.
“So, hats off to him. Again, this is only the first season … I’m very impressed with the way he’s gotten out of the gates. He’s a typical guy who devotes his life to baseball.”
Okita could see that Aloy was right there with his father at an early age.
“He takes care of his work in the classroom, he’s a good kid, he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he’s got a lot of talent,” Okita said. “You put those things together, that is definitely a recipe for success.”
With his father in the dugout and his brother Kuhio Aloy playing first base, Wehiwa Aloy watched the entire broadcast of the Bears’ state championship game loss on Friday night. Baldwin lost the game in the bottom of the seventh on a walk-off triple.
“I was up until 2 in the morning watching it,” Wehiwa Aloy said. “It was a stunner. My emotions were everywhere, up and down throughout the whole entire game and unfortunately they lost, but it was a really good game.”
Kuhio Aloy is headed to BYU and Baldwin teammate Levi Maddela is on his way to UH to continue their baseball careers, just the latest stamp of legitimacy for the Bears’ program.
“That program is great, if you come out of there you’re definitely going to be something after that, for sure,” Wehiwa Aloy said. “Not only in baseball, but in life, too. They teach a lot of stuff and it’s helped me. … Always to be humble and play for the team.”
The Aloy brothers speak often and the subject nearly always gets around to baseball — Kuhio Aloy was 6 for 8 with two doubles, two runs and two RBIs in last week’s state tournament.
“I just tell him it’s super fun and it is super competitive,” Wehiwa said of his brotherly talks about college baseball — the Aloy name has been synonymous with Maui baseball since Jamie Aloy was a standout in Little League in the early 1990s.
“I take a lot of pride in it,” Wehiwa Aloy said. “Just following in my dad’s footsteps, try to be just as good or better than him. ‘Just play as hard as you can, stay humble’ — that’s all he says, pretty much.”
Jamie Aloy has helped his sons in their garage weight room, but both boys are chasing their dad in any weightlifting competition.
“In the lower body I probably could, but he can bench the house, for sure,” Wehiwa Aloy said. “He’s a unit.”
When it comes to younger brother, “I’m way stronger than him, no doubt,” Wehiwa Aloy said, adding that with his brother on his way to NCAA D-I baseball, “I take a lot of pride in that because we came from little options and now where we got now, where we came from, always being the best out there, just keeping our heads down and just grinding.”
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.
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