WAILUKU — For openers, the Baldwin High School baseball team knows it only gets tougher from here.

The Bears used every player on their roster in a 19-0, three-inning win over Ka'ahumanu Hou in the first game of the Maui Interscholastic League season yesterday at Maehara Stadium.

The difference between the Bears — who had a string of 15 straight state-tournament appearances snapped last year — and the Ali'i Lions, coming back to the MIL after a five-year absence and one league win in the history of their program, was obvious from the beginning.

The top of the first inning took 45 minutes to complete as Baldwin sent 19 batters to the plate and scored 13 runs on six hits. The inning ended when lead-off hitter Skyler Cabacungan bunted back to the pitcher in his third at-bat.

To that point — through 18 hitters — the Bears were batting 1.000 as a team because their first two outs were sacrifice flies. Conversely, the Ali'i Lions sent a total of 11 batters to the plate in the game, which was shortened by the 15-run mercy rule.

''Everybody got in today,'' Baldwin coach Jon Viela said to The Maui News. ''In a game like this we want our kids to maintain the focus that we do in practice, come with the same work ethic we have in practice — the kind of focus and work ethic we are going to need against everybody else. Nothing changes.''

The schedule changes quickly for the Bears, who face King Kekaulike and Lahainaluna twice each in the next week. On March 20, Baldwin faces defending MIL champion St. Anthony in the only meeting of the season between the Division I Bears and Division II Trojans.

St. Anthony beat Baldwin in last season's MIL opener.

After the Trojans, it is Kamehameha-Maui — the league's other state tournament team of a year ago — twice for the Bears.

''It definitely gets a lot harder now,'' Viela said. ''King Kekaulike, Lahainaluna, St. Anthony and Kamehameha are all good teams. Our kids know our schedule and they know we have to take every day to get better.''

Austin Davis' single to left field in the second inning was Kaa'humanu Hou's lone hit. Baldwin pitcher Tyler Ono struck out eight of the 11 batters he faced.

''Tyler threw strikes, which was good,'' Viela said. ''Everybody knows we have a lot of young pitchers and he is one of them. They have been working hard and we need all of them to throw strikes to keep up in ballgames.''

Cabacungan, Ono and Jordan Negrini all had two of the Bears' 14 hits. Ono had the game's only extra-base hit, a double in the second.

The Ali'i Lions will go back to the drawing board under coach Glenn Foo Sum, who led the school's boys basketball team to five wins, including an upset of No. 1 seed Lana'i in the MIL Division II tournament last month.

''We obviously have a lot of work to do,'' Foo Sum said. ''We didn't help a very good Baldwin team today at all, but we have to start somewhere. It is kind of like basketball, maybe we can finish better than we started today. My kids have great attitudes, so hopefully we can build from here.''

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