Maui brothers back on baseball diamond together for one of the nation’s top college teams

Brothers Wehiwa and Kuhio Aloy vividly remember chasing after baseballs — and each other — at Kurt Suzuki Family Foundation clinics held each January at Maehara Stadium in the War Memorial Complex in Wailuku.

They spent most of their lives playing together on the diamond until college took them their separate ways. But now, the Baldwin High School graduates are back together in Fayetteville, Ark., where they are preparing to start the season as key members of a promising University of Arkansas baseball team.

“We take a lot of pride over here, representing Maui and the 808,” Wehiwa Aloy said Tuesday at the Razorbacks’ media day. “We don’t really get that much exposure, so being able to come out here and perform on the highest stage is very cool and hopefully gives some motivation to the little kids back at home, showing them they can do anything, even being from a small island like Maui.”

Wehiwa Aloy is entering his junior year and second season as the starting shortstop for the Razorbacks, who are ranked fifth in the nation going into 2025 by the D1Baseball website. As a player, he is the No. 22 college draft prospect on the D1Baseball list. 

Last season, the Razorbacks lost four of their last five games — two in the Southeastern Conference tournament and then two of three as a regional host in Fayetteville — as their promising season came to a screeching halt at 44-16. Arkansas fans were not kind to team on social media after the disappointing finish, but Wehiwa Aloy would not have it any other way.

“The atmosphere over here is very crazy,” he said. “I’m ready just to have fun and play with the boys on this team. It’s been a long time, it’s been a very long fall, but I think we’re ready. … This is like the professional sports in Arkansas, so everybody is here when there’s a game going. So, it’s very cool and loud, too.”

Wehiwa Aloy began his career at Sacramento State and transferred to Arkansas prior to the 2024 season. He has hit 14 home runs in each of his two college seasons and has a .323 overall batting average in college. In 116 career games, he also has 102 runs batted in, including 55 RBIs in 60 games as a sophomore for the Razorbacks.

He does not expect a repeat of the way last season finished for the 2025 Razorbacks.

“This is a way better team, losing at home is driving us to be even more better,” he said. “We’ve just got a lot more guys that want to compete and just win.”

Kuhio Aloy played last season at Brigham Young University and was named to the Big 12 Conference All-Freshman team. He started 50 of 52 games for BYU — 46 as a designated hitter — and led the Cougars in in RBIs (38), was second on the team in hits (53), third on the team in doubles (9), and fourth on the team in home runs (8).

Now, the Aloy boys are together just as they have been for most of their lives on the diamond.

“Oh, it’s a huge blessing,” Kuhio Aloy said. I’ve shared the field with my brother all my life that I can remember and it’s always been fun, just being able to go out there and play the sport that I love and the sport that he loves.“

The Aloys are both sports management majors, share an on-campus apartment, and can’t wait for the season to start Feb. 14 against Washington State.

“Getting the opportunity to play in the SEC is rare,” Baldwin head coach Craig Okita said. “People can argue about it, but the SEC is probably the premier league across the nation, so two local guys — and brothers at that — to get an opportunity to go out there and hopefully have a big impact on that team and hopefully be in the national championship picture is something that doesn’t come around a whole lot.”

The brothers are also able to play the game on one of biggest stages in college in the era of Name, Image and Likeness opportunities that became law in 2022. The Arkansas athletic website lists 119 sponsor and partner companies that student-athletes are welcomed to make deals with for opportunities that include social media influencing, public appearances, autograph signings, instructing youth camps or clinics, and media interviews or commercials.

Wehiwa Aloy said it’s special to go from playing baseball on Maui to competing with his brother “at the highest college level.” The boys’ father Jamie Aloy was a 1995 state champion for Baldwin and then enjoyed stellar career at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. They come from a proud Valley Isle baseball tradition that includes Suzuki, whose foundation hosted the annual clinics the Aloy brothers used to attend growing up.

Suzuki, a 2001 Baldwin graduate who went on to star at Cal State-Fullerton, was a second-round draft pick of the Oakland A’s in 2004 — at No. 67 overall, he was the highest pick ever for a Maui-born player. 

Suzuki finished his career in 2022 after an MLB All-Star selection in 2014 as a member of the Minnesota Twins and won the 2019 World Series with the Washington Nationals. He holds several records for Major Leaguers who were born in Hawai‘i, including games played (1,635), hits (1,421), home runs (143), RBIs (730), and doubles (295). Suzuki also ranks 32nd all-time for games caught (1,539), and 39th among all catchers for hits (1,421) in Major League Baseball history.

Now, Wehiwa Aloy appears to be in position to possibly better that draft spot, although he said: “I don’t really pay attention to that (draft) stuff.”

But Okita does. He said that this is a huge season for Wehiwa Aloy as he is eligible for the Major League Baseball draft in June as a third-year NCAA Division I player.

“Wehiwa has definitely been able to make that transition and his draft stock has gone up and I spoke to hiom a little bit and I said, ‘Hey, this is a big year for you,’ ” Okita said. “Truthfully, this year could mean millions of dollars for him. He could get drafted high in the first round. He said, ‘Well coach, every year is a big year.’ I kind of just left it at that.”

For now, the Aloy boys’ focus is on the messages from Suzuki and the baseball minds at the clinics that have driven them since their early childhoods.

“We’ve been told pretty much our whole lives, ‘Keep working and everything is going to pay off. Keep pushing, keep grinding every day, every day get 1% better and that’ll just help in the long run,’ ” Kuhio Aloy said.

Wehiwa Aloy said the brothers are almost always together, adding that he is the cook when the two eat at home, but baseball is nearly always the topic of conversation. Fried food and the cold weather are challenges that both brothers have had to acclimate to.

“We’re always just bouncing (baseball) ideas off each other so we can get better,” Wehiwa Aloy said. “It’s kind of cool to get the stress and worry out of baseball together.”

Wehiwa Aloy said representing Baldwin High School “is so special, being from such a small high school over there that nobody really knows at all in the country, just getting Baldwin on the map, for sure. Baldwin has produced a lot of talent throughout the years and they keep on producing good talent, so it’s very cool to come from a school like that.”

The Aloys keep up with former Baldwin teammates Ben Zeigler-Namoa and Dylan Waite, who each play for UH, and Levi Maddela, who is playing at Shorter University in Rome, Ga.

“It’s very cool to see where they’re all at and all of them are doing pretty good, too,” Wehiwa Aloy said.