Box Score

HONOLULU - The University of Hawai`i Rainbow baseball team (5-8) fell to the No. 11 Long Beach State 49ers (8-2) 4-2 in front of a season-high crowd of 3,565 at Les Murakami Stadium Saturday. Nicholas Rhodes (0-1) pitched well, striking out a career-high nine in the first complete game of his career, but took the loss. Vance Worley (2-0) struck out 11 in 8.0 innings to get the win. Nick Vincent picked up the save.

Jonathan Hee led UH at the plate, going 2-for-4 with two RBI. Greg Garcia was 1-for-3 with a run while Kevin Macdonald and Jeffrey Van Doornum added hits for the 'Bows.

The Beach started the scoring right away as Robert Burk hit a lead-off home run. LBSU then added two more runs in the first before putting up another run in the top of the third to make it 4-0.

The Rainbow bats awoke in the bottom of the third inning as Garcia got UH's first hit of the game with two outs. Garcia then stole second before coming in to score on an RBI-single by Hee, who fouled off five pitches on a 2-2 count, cutting it back to 4-1.

The two starting pitchers held both offenses off the scoreboard until the bottom of the eighth, when Hee again hit an RBI-single, cutting the deficit to 4-2. UH had runners on first and third with just one out, but couldn't capitalize, as Worley got a pop up and a strikeout to end the inning with the two-run cushion.

In the bottom of the ninth, Vinnie Catricala drew a lead-off walk. But UH wasn't able to bring him around, making the final 4-2.

The series concludes with tomorrow's game at 1:05 p.m.

-UH-