Men's College World Series: Meet the Hawaiian bash brothers taking college baseball by storm
OMAHA, Neb. — Two weeks ago, Wehiwa Aloy, the SEC player of the year, stood tall on the warning track dirt at Baum Walker Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and prepared to greet an island.
His Arkansas Razorbacks, ranked No. 3 in the country, had just dispatched the defending champion University of Tennessee Volunteers to punch their ticket to the Men's College World Series. It was a relatively quiet day for Wehiwa (1-for-4), but everyone knew that Arkansas wouldn't have gotten to that point without the star junior who'd cranked 20 homers. The same could be said of Wehiwa's younger brother, Kuhio, Arkansas' sophomore designated hitter and fellow first-team SEC selection, who contributed an RBI single in the win.
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In the revelrous aftermath, Wehiwa made his way toward the stands. His younger brother stood nearby. A large security guard in a banana-yellow polo shirt held open the gate separating crowd from diamond. Onto the field strolled Napua Aloy, Wehiwa's mom, ready with a congratulatory hug. She wore blue jeans, a floral-patterned, Hawaii-themed Razorbacks jersey and that shining, knowing smile of a proud mama.
Behind Napua waited the rest of the extended Aloy clan: friends, family members, plus-ones. Many of them carried maile leis, large, winding green fronds sewn into a necklace in the traditional Hawaiian fashion. One by one, they stepped onto the dirt. And one by one, Wehiwa — face still tacked with sweat — bowed his head, allowing each visitor to drape a lei around his broad shoulders. Before long, he had a full-blown maile grove hanging from his neck. In the stands, some Arkansas fans held palm trees; others wore scarlet leis of their own.
It was quite a sight: The best player in college baseball's best conference cloaked in tradition, surrounded by family old and new. Both brothers are the product and the pride of a Hawaiian baseball community all its own. And yet here they were, embraced by a fan base 4,000 miles from home.
From afar, Shane Victorino, the godfather of Hawaiian baseball, couldn't help but smile.
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'This is a moment. This is Hawaiian history, bro,' he told Yahoo Sports later over the phone.
'When that happens, they'll pass everyone'
The Aloy brothers grew up on the island of Maui, right down the road from where Victorino's journey began. Jamie Aloy, the boys' father, played both ways at the University of Hawaii and was described by one notable Hawaii baseball person as 'the Hawaiian Shohei Ohtani.' But despite being a late-round draft pick by the Giants in 1999, Jamie never played competitively on the mainland.
His sons have carved a different path. Both Wehiwa and Kuhio showed ability at a young age. More importantly, they carried an aptitude and a passion for the sport. The kids would play whenever and wherever they could — on the beach, on the dirt, on the diamond. They ran up volcanoes with their dad for fun. Beneath the swaying palms of paradise, their abilities blossomed, despite the at times isolating nature of Hawaiian baseball.
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'When they were 11, coming to camps, they were tiny guys. Couldn't hit the ball out of the infield,' said Donny Kadokawa, a longtime coach and founder of the Kado Baseball program in Hawaii. 'But they just kept working. Their dad was a big dude, and I told him, 'They'll get physical. Just stay fundamentally sound. When that happens, they'll pass everyone.''
The islands have a unique baseball culture, one with impediments and advantages all its own. Because it's warm all the time, kids are able to play baseball year-round, quickening their development. That dynamic is most visible during the Little League World Series, a competition in which the islands almost always punch above their weight.
But for years, Hawaii baseball has operated below capacity, matriculating a disproportionately low number of players to top college programs and into pro ball for a state with sensational weather and a passionate love of sports.
The distance, assuredly, has played a major role in that. A bucket of baseballs, for instance, can cost as much as $40 more on the islands than on the mainland. Traveling to the lower 48 to face high-level competition or receive high-level instruction is expensive and time-consuming. The transition, too, from a laid-back atmosphere in Hawaii to a more cutthroat environment on the mainland, can be humbling and overwhelming on top of the adjustment from high school to college. And so, for decades, many of the most talented Hawaiian high schoolers would either sign with a big-league club straight out of high school, attend a top junior college on the mainland or join up with one of the island's few college programs.
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'You get out in that world, it's ruthless,' Victorino said of the transition.
The Aloy brothers are a signal that things are changing.
'They just find a way'
Wehiwa first drew Division I attention during a showcase at Stanford the summer before his junior year of high school. Then-Sacramento State recruiting coordinator Tyler LaTorre remembers the weekend vividly. Aloy wasn't strong yet, but his movements were pure, and his tools were unavoidable. The makeup, too, was loud — the energy, the hunger to improve, the willingness to learn. Plus, Wehiwa had a tuft of dyed red hair peeking out the back of his helmet.
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He was hard to miss, easy to remember.
Wehiwa committed to Sac State, where he starred as a freshman in 2023. But a late high school growth spurt had unlocked a new level of physicality and, with it, a new offensive ceiling. He outgrew Sac State, literally and figuratively. And in the era of the NCAA transfer portal, when movement is easier than ever, Wehiwa was able to seek out a bigger stage.
Arkansas stood out almost immediately. Besides being one of the nation's top programs, the Razorbacks already had another Hawaiian, infielder Nolan Souza, on the roster. They'd also featured Hawaiian Rick Nomura from 2014 to '16. There was history, there was comfort, there was a place that felt like home.
'Once he visited Arkansas and saw the facilities there, you know, I think it was a no-brainer for him,' Kadokawa explained.
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Kuhio would arrive one year later. His route to Arkansas went through the mountains of Utah. Coming out of high school, most clubs viewed the younger brother as a pitcher once a video of him throwing 94 mph made the rounds among recruiting coordinators. BYU, though, still liked his bat and was willing to let Kuhio try both. That mattered, as did the Provo area's large Polynesian population. After a short-lived attempt at pitching his freshman fall, Kuhio moved to the batter's box full-time and enjoyed a stellar freshman season. His stock rose enough that he entered the portal last summer to join his brother in Fayetteville.
But their rise is more than the success story of a nuclear family. The Aloy brothers are the proof and the pride of a Hawaiian baseball system that has made meaningful strides over the past decade.
There are now year-round leagues to help bridge the post-Little League gap and more structured development opportunities, including those in the Kado Baseball program. There's also a growing network of mentors with MLB coaching experience, including Cleveland's Kai Correa, Kansas City's Keoni DeRenne and Texas' Brendan Sagara. Kids on the island are getting better baseball coaching and more thorough support earlier and more consistently than ever. For the Aloys, that pipeline was supercharged as a result of their father's experience around the game.
'They just find a way,' LaTorre, the Sac State recruiter who is now the head coach at Pepperdine, gushed. 'It's a resourcefulness to just find a way, to find the joy in playing baseball. I don't think they ever lose that Hawaiian ... I think they call it Ohana. They have this ability to have a joy playing for their state, but it's almost like their country, you know? They never lose that Hawaiian culture that they grew up in, even though they may be in Arkansas, 6000 miles away.'
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Said Victorino: 'It's built in you. It's a pride. From Hawaii, you have pride. The pride we have about who we are and what we are, what we represent. Aloha spirit.'
Ohana in Omaha
Now, the brothers find themselves in Omaha, fighting for a championship on the sport's biggest stage. Their Razorbacks remain alive, despite dropping their first game of the tournament against conference rivals LSU. Arkansas takes on UCLA in an elimination game Tuesday night, the winner of which will need to beat LSU twice to reach the finals.
But whatever happens next, the Aloys' impact should be lasting. Two brothers from Hawaii brought their talents, their vibe and their culture halfway around the world — from tropical paradise to the heart of SEC country. And the pipeline isn't drying up anytime soon.
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Wehiwa's time in Arkansas will soon be over, likely as a first-round draft pick with a multimillion-dollar bonus. But Kuhio will return in 2026, and he'll be joined by Judah Ota, a highly regarded prep prospect from 'Iolani High School in Honolulu.
Last month, Kadokawa flew a group of high school players from Hawaii to Fayetteville for regional weekend. The scenes were spectacular; young kids with enormous flags, decked out in island gear, thrilled to cheer on the Aloys. They soaked it all in — the noise, the crowd, the exhilarating scene of two brothers who look like them, who sound like them, who are from where they're from, playing on one of college baseball's biggest stages.
They saw what was possible. What might be.
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