In a meeting of upstart Neighbor Island programs, Blake Amaral pitched a complete game and went 2 for 3 yesterday to help Kamehameha-Hawai'i rally past St. Anthony, 8-3, in the Wally Yonamine Foundation Baseball State Championship quarterfinals.

The Big Island Interscholastic Federation runner-up Warriors improved to 13-3 in the regular and postseason and will face the winner of last night's late game between Punahou and Hilo in tonight's 8 o'clock semifinal at Les Murakami Stadium.

It is the first state semifinal appearance for Kamehameha-Hawai'i, which is in its fourth year as a varsity program.

"I'm happy for the (Big) Island, because I know there were some people here who thought maybe we didn't deserve three (state) berths," Warriors coach Andy Correa said. "But our league was pretty competitive. There were four or five teams that were pretty well-balanced."

Kamehameha-Hawai'i took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning after back-to-back doubles by Tyson Goo and Kolten Wong, but the Maui Interscholastic League champion and No. 4-seeded Trojans (10-4) answered with two runs in the bottom half on Aaron Uehara's RBI single to left field and Patrick Wilhelm-Ioane's run-scoring groundout.

The Warriors then scored four runs on four hits in the third, with Tyson Crosier driving in two on a single to right, Keli'i Kimi adding an RBI single to left and Russell Kackley bringing home a runner on a groundout to second to make it 5-2.

St. Anthony cut it to 5-3 in the bottom half after Uehara's squeeze bunt to score Jordan Kahalekai, but Kamehameha-Hawai'i scored single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to pull away.

"When the offense scored those runs, that made me a little more comfortable," said Amaral, who allowed only one run on four hits over the final six innings. "I found my rhythm and my defense made a lot of plays. But (St. Anthony) is a tough team; we had to give them a lot of respect."

Despite the loss, Trojans coach Shane Dudoit said it was a positive experience for his young team, which has no seniors, six juniors, four sophomores and eight freshmen on the roster. St. Anthony's most recent state tournament appearance was in 1991.

"This was good for us," Dudoit said. "It's easy to get distracted here, being in this tournament and playing in (Les Murakami) Stadium. But our guys didn't play afraid."

Reach Wes Nakama at wnakama@honoluluadvertiser.com.