HONOLULU – The University of Hawai'i dropped the first game of the series 14-2 to CSUN Thursday night at Les Murakami Stadium.
 
The Rainbow Warriors (22-21, 13-9) move to 3-8 in series openers and have now lost seven straight to the Matadors (27-19, 15-10), who take over third place in the Big West with the win.
 
A quiet game through the first two innings got broken up by CSUN when Sojka got into one and drove a home run over the right-field wall to go up 2-0.
 
The 'Bows found themselves in another jam in the top of the sixth inning when the Matadors managed to get a pair of baserunners aboard before a double would drive in a run. Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, a wild pitch brought another run in and extended the lead to 4-0.
 
In the seventh, CSUN hit a leadoff double, and a failed pickoff attempt allowed the runner to advance to third. With Sojka at the plate, he drove in his third run of the ballgame. Northridge was not done there as a few batters later, Gonzalez found the right-center field gap for two more runs. The final run of the inning came on a single up the middle for an 8-0 lead.
 
The Rainbow Warriors got on the board in the bottom of the eighth as graduate center fielder Cole Cabrera picked up his second hit of the night to get things started. The following two batters for UH reached base to load the bases for the sophomore second baseman, Kyson Donahue. Donahue hit a choppy ground ball to second base, who would tag out the runner going to second, but then threw the ball away, allowing a second runner to score and allowed the only two runs of the night for the 'Bows.
 
CSUN added salt to the wound in the ninth and put up a 6-spot to go up 14-2.
 
Junior pitcher Cade Halemanu started tonight and went five and two-thirds of an inning before being pulled. He allowed four runs on six hits and struck out a pair of hitters.
 
Cabrera led UH hitters with two, while Donahue picked up the only RBI of the night.
 
The Rainbow Warriors are back tomorrow for game two of the series, with the first pitch slated for 6:35 p.m. HT.