Relief pitcher Rossi Abordo escaped a bases-loaded threat with a pair of strikeouts, and Central East Maui Little League defeated homestanding Aiea, 9-5, in the championship game of the Hawaii state tournament.

The win was Central East Maui's second over Aiea in three tournament meetings, and returned the major baseball division's state championship flag to the island of Maui for the first time since 2004. Central East Maui advanced to the West Region tournament in San Bernardino, California.

Aiea, which hosted the tournament at its Aiea Recreation Center Annex field, had extended the tournament to a deciding game by rallying for a 7-4 victory over Central East Maui earlier in the day.

"We've dreamt about this moment for so long," said Central East Maui manager Glenn Yonashiro. "To see it become a reality is incredible. Dreams do come true. I'm so proud of our boys and how they worked so hard to get to this moment."

Central East Maui built an 8-2 lead in the tournament's final game, and carried a 9-4 advantage into the final inning. But Aiea, which forced the deciding game by overcoming a sixth inning deficit against the Maui team earlier that day, scored once and loaded the bases with one out in the sixth before the curveballing Abordo fanned two hitters in the heart of the Aiea batting order to preserve the win.

"We were up by four, but we never felt comfortable," noted Yonashiro. "Aiea is such an unbelievably tough team. They kept coming until the final out."

Central East Maui built its lead with a flurry of hits in the second inning.

"The championship game, they took a 2-0 lead on us, but fortunately our bats started to work after that, and we had five straight singles," explained Yonashiro.

The hits resulted in four runs, and reversed Central East Maui's two-run deficit. Starting pitcher Joshua Nobriga held Aiea to just three hits in four-plus innings, and kept the Oahu team off the scoreboard after their initial runs.

Aiea rallied to win the day's earlier meeting when Kevin Hironaka delivered a two-run single and Hunter Yara followed with a two-run homer in the final inning.

Central East Maui reached the championship game by opening the tournament with a pair of victories. The Maui squad capitalized on seven Hilo American errors in their opener, and converted five unearned runs into a 6-5 victory. Shadd Santos and Noah Apolo each collected two hits for Central East Maui, and Skylar Ishikawa added a triple. Apolo scattered eight hits over 5-1/3 innings before reliever Nicholas Asuncion closed out the win.

Two days later, Central East Maui drilled three home runs in a convincing 10-2 win over Aiea. Apolo launched a three-run homer that cleared the left field fence in the first, and Chazz Ishikawa added a two-run shot to right in the second. After Aiea narrowed the lead to 5-2 Asuncion extended Central East Maui's advantage ith a grand slam over the left center field fence in the fourth.

Asuncion walked six and allowed four hits in 4-2/3 innings, but pitched out of trouble and held Aiea to just two runs.

"I'm speechless right now, to tell you the truth," said Yonashiro, who watched Aiea defeat three-time defending state champion Waipio Little League, 1-0, the day before. "We've got some really good hitters, but I don't want to seem cocky."

Weston Saito's two-out, two-strike solo home run in the fifth inning gave Aiea its earlier win over Waipio, and the District 6 champions earned a rematch with Central East Maui by defeating Waipio again, 8-5, in the elimination bracket final. Yara threw a complete game and opened the scoring with a three-run homer in the first inning, while Travis Tanaka homered twice for Aiea.

Central East Maui became the eighth Maui-based league to win Hawaii's state championship in the major baseball division. The league had finished third in the 2008 state tournament.