N. Mathias
WAILUKU — Noah Mathias knows a little bit of what it takes to win the Hawaii State Little League Majors (11-12) Division title.
His older brother Kaleb Mathias played on the first Maui team to make it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., in 2019 — Noah Mathias attended the entire ride as an 8-year-old then, through the county and state tournaments and West Regional in San Bernardino, Calif., to the LLWS.
Now, Noah Mathias is one of the leaders of the Central Maui Little League All-Stars who rolled through the Maui County tournament, scoring three straight three-inning mercy rule wins three weeks ago in Makawao.
The state tournament starts a five-day run today on Oahu.
“I’m pretty excited to go this year because my brother and them went in 2019 and I had a great time watching him, they were the first team from Maui (to go to Williamsport),” said Noah Mathias, a rising seventh grader at Kamehameha Schools Maui who plays shortstop and pitches. “I just remember it was a big crowd and it was pretty exciting to see how much people were excited to see a team from Hawaii was playing in the World Series again.
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“And just, like, the experience they had was pretty cool.”
Honolulu Little League won LLWS titles in 2018 and 2022, while the Maui team advanced to the final four in 2019.
Kaleb Mathias is on the Central Maui team that is the state champion and won its opener at the Senior League (15-16) West Regional in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday. Kaleb Mathias, a rising junior at KSM, has given his brother some advice on the upcoming state tournament that begins today.
“He just said ‘stay calm if you fall behind, stay with your team, always battle back,’ “ Noah Mathias said. “He’s in Oakland — we’re probably going to communicate and tell each other how it’s been going. I’ve learned a lot of things from him. I probably played baseball because of him wanting me to play baseball, mostly.”
Noah Mathias is looking forward to the possibility of making a run like his brother’s team did.
“It would be amazing to represent Maui again and show that we can hang with the best teams in the world, you know, just get that experience for all of us,” Noah Mathias said. “We have a lot of confidence, feeling that we can do pretty well and hopefully go on.”
Noah Mathias’ teammates Briell Hong and Brextyn Hong are younger siblings of Bransyn Hong, who was also a member of the 2019 Maui LLWS team.
Josiah Yamada, a seventh grader at Iao Intermediate, is another leader on this Central Maui team headed to the state tournament.
“We’ve been practicing very hard,” Yamada said. “I’m just pretty excited.”
The team also includes Ayden Anderson, Jaxon Delos Santos, Kaden Grancha, Kanon Nakama, Justin Paredes, Maddox Prones, Kolby Sergent, Evan Tavares and Justice Wickes.
“We’ve been bonding very good lately,” Yamada said. “It’s super fun, everybody’s very good on this team.”
The team is managed by former Maui High School and Washington State standout Van Delos Santos — his coaches are his uncle Timmy Guillermo and former teammate Joey Martelles. Guillermo’s son Lee Guillermo, a Maui High baseball alumni a few years older than Delos Santos and Martelles, is a coach for the Hilo team that Maui will open against today.
Van Delos Santos said that coaching strategy in Little League has gotten a little easier with the continuous batting order where every player on the roster bats in the same order and throughout the game.
Jaxon Delos Santos, Briell Hong, Mathias and Grancha will lead a list of 11 players who can pitch if necessary for Central Maui.
“Basically my whole team can pitch — we’ve got 12 guys going and I think 11 guys can pitch,” Van Delos Santos said, adding that either Briell Hong or Jaxon Delos Santos will start on the mound today. “They are all pretty good, everybody is pretty good. At this age, it’s hard to coach because you never know who’s going to show up. … All hands on deck.”
Van Delos Santos is still a standout in Maui AJA baseball, but he has learned to love coaching.
“For me, I enjoy coaching more than playing at this point right now, especially like the last three, four years I quit, I don’t play softball anymore, I just dedicate my time to youth baseball,” Van Delos Santos said.
Van Delos Santos is keenly aware of what the game means to Maui.
“Baseball runs deep on our island,” he said. “A lot of these families is baseball families on our team. … A lot of these families, I knew them for a long time or they’ve been around the game for generations, passed down from parents.”
He added that his players know the recent history of success for Maui youth baseball.
“The kids, I guess with the social media nowadays, they understand it, but we just try to keep them humble and working hard,” Van Delos Santos said. “Humble and working hard, but obviously because their brothers made it to the World Series, they know what’s out there.
“They know that we can do it, they’ve seen it done in the past. These kids, they’ve been watching Hawaii playing on that big stage, in the World Series, on TV, ESPN, so they know that they can actually get there.”
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.
N. Mathias 
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