HONOLULU — A disappointing home series setback to Long Beach State widened the gap between the Hawaii baseball team and the Big West’s elite that the Rainbow Warriors will soon meet.
UH’s ninth-inning rally attempt from four runs down ended with the tying run on third base as the Dirtbags held on for the 5-4 Sunday win in the three-game series rubber match at Les Murakami Stadium.
Pinch hitter Will Bowen led off with a solo home run to right and Jared Quandt hit a two-out, two-run single off of Maui native Ka‘imi Kahalekai, but the 6-foot-8 freshman regrouped and struck out Draven Nushida with Ben Zeigler-Namoa 90 feet from the plate.
[Note: See below for more photos of Hawaii-Long Beach State baseball.]
Kahalekai, a Kamehameha-Maui graduate, recorded his second save in as many days.
UH (22-8, 9-6 Big West) had won 11 straight Sunday home games dating to last season.
There was very little time to dwell about it as the Rainbows embarked Monday for what could be a make-or-break two week, eight-game road trip that includes the Big West’s top two teams in UC Irvine (23-7, 11-1) and Cal Poly (22-8, 12-0).
UH starts it with a midweek game against Santa Clara (13-15) of the West Coast Conference at 3 p.m. Hawaii time Tuesday in Northern California before heading on to San Luis Obispo for the Cal Poly series starting Friday.
“Tomorrow's another day. We'll regroup,” said UH coach Rich Hill, who lauded his players for their rally. “We'll get the travel roster ready to go. We've got a mid-week D-I opponent that's very good in Santa Clara, being in the Bay Area and getting on the road with a very good Cal Poly team. So we'll be ready.”
The Broncos have faced three Big West teams for series, taking them from CSUN and UC San Diego but losing a set to UC Davis.
The afternoon crowd of 2,653 (4,094 tickets issued) — including the UH band for the first time this season — bore witness to another UH stumble against a team in the bottom half of the conference.
Setbacks against LBSU (12-17, 6-9) and UC Riverside (12-19, 3-12) in particular have kept the ‘Bows from keeping pace with Cal Poly and UCI as teams jockey for one of the coveted berths in the inaugural Big West tournament. UH is tied for third with Cal State Fullerton, which will host the five-team May event.
A key call in the sixth — a diving Shunsuke Sakaino was called out by first base umpire Bradley Hungerford as pitcher Tyler Gebb stepped on the bag — elicited boos from the Les crowd and drew a strong response from UH first base coach Lindsay Meggs and Hill, who came all the way across the diamond to protest.
UH, trailing 3-1, stranded two in the inning. There was no option for replay review for the non-televised game.
“Well, he's out because the umpire says he was out; pass interference because the umpire says it's pass interference,” Hill said. “You know, calls you know aren't going to go your way, and they didn't go our way today. So just don't want to put ourselves in position to where a bad call affects us.”
But in several instances, UH cost itself.
UH committed two errors in the third to contribute to the Dirtbags’ three-run inning. All three of the day’s defensive miscues were charged to usually sure-handed middle infielders Jordan Donahue (two) and Sakaino.
“Physical errors are part of the game. You saw that today,” Hill said. “Both those guys have been outstanding their whole career, so we'll flush it and move on defensively. Both those two guys are superstar defenders, in my opinion.”
In the sixth, Quandt led off with a double. Nushida walked and Kedren Kinzie bunted them over on a sacrifice. Itsuki Takemoto reached base on an awkward play by the LBSU defense and Quandt bolted home and was thrown out well short of home plate. The controversial Sakaino play followed at first.
For LBSU, the one-run wins on Saturday and Sunday were a considerable boost for a program that lost four such games heading into the series.
First-year coach TJ Bruce called the Murakami Stadium atmosphere “incredible” and credited Hill and UH for it.
“I mean, I've been here three times now, and this is one of the best atmospheres, in my opinion, to play at,” Bruce told Spectrum News. “So my hat’s off to them. They're really fun. They're a baseball knowledge crowd. When you're a baseball knowledgeable crowd and you're loud, it's really fun to interact and be in it.”
Starter Cooper Walls lasted 4 2/3 innings with no earned runs charged. Sebastian Gonzalez backed him up with 3 1/3 scoreless frames; Gonzalez has yet to be charged a run in 16 innings since moving from the starting rotation to the bullpen.
Zeigler-Namoa was 3-for-5 while Quandt was 2-for-3 with two walks.
Bowen, a junior out of the College of San Mateo (Calif.), had his first extra-base hit of the season on an 0-2 count after fouling off three straight pitches.
During the defensive half of the ninth, he focused on slowing his heart rate in the dugout before coming to bat for catcher Konnor Palmeira.
“This series, I mean, I think we have a lot of stuff to learn, definitely, but there's also a lot of positives,” Bowen said. “Even though we dropped two of three games, I feel like a lot of guys are coming into their roles as the season goes on, figuring stuff out.
“The next two weeks is going to be tough,” he added. “And there’s going to be a lot of different guys called upon to do their job. And I have no doubt that everyone on our team is ready when their name is called upon.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.
