HONOLULU - The University of Hawai'i softball team held its first practice at the newly renovated Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium on Tuesday afternoon. The project, which started on June 30, 2017 is nearly complete. The renovation would not have been possible without the support of the Hawai'i State Legislature which provided $3.4M of appropriations toward the improvements.  

The team started practice last week but were using the Les Murakami Stadium facilities as final touches on the softball field were being completed.

Built prior to the 1998 season, this is the first major renovation to the Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium. In 2001, the rightfield batting house was built and in 2009 the training room/hospitality room beneath the third base-side bleachers was constructed. In 2014, new stadium field lights were installed and in 2015 a new video scoreboard replaced the original scoreboard. Also added in 2015 was custom padding for the backstop behind homeplate.

Renovations to the Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium: 

• Regraded field to install new artificial turf in the outfield and new skinned infield
• Upgraded fencing and custom padding in the outfield
• New poles/safety netting for spectators, pedestrians, vehicles, and beach volleyball courts
• Higher poles/netting in the outfield to protect tennis courts
• Repainted entire stadium
• Upgraded ADA ramp
• Safety coating on walkways and stairs of stadium
• New flooring for dugouts
• New graphic banners facing outside the stadium under the bleachers
• Repainting/new fencing of rightfield batting house
• New storage shed built in the leftfield batting cage area
• New perimeter fencing

The Rainbow Wahine will host their first event there on Sunday, February 11, 2018 as UH hosts Josai (Tokyo, Japan) in a pair of exhibition games starting at 1:00 pm. The official home opener will come two weeks later as the 'Bows begin the Malihini Kipa Aloha Tournament against California on Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 6:00 p.m.