HONOLULU – The Hawai'i baseball team rallied in the middle and late innings but couldn't dig itself out of an early hole in a 12-8 loss to No. 20 UC Irvine Friday night at Les Murakami Stadium.
 
Trailing 8-1 heading to the bottom of the fourth, the Rainbow Warriors scored seven of the game's next eight runs to pull within a run heading to the ninth inning.
 
The 'Bows struck for two runs in the fourth on a Dallas Duarte RBI ground out and a passed ball before scoring three times in the fifth to cut it to 8-6. Stone Miyao singled in the first run of the frame to make it 8-4 before Ben Zeigler-Namoa made it 8-5 with an RBI single of his own one batter later. Duarte capped off the scoring in the frame with his second RBI of the night on a sacrifice fly.
 
UCI got a run back in the sixth, but Hawai'i closed the gap even further with two more runs in the eighth to trim the Anteater lead to 9-8. Elijah Ickes singled and came around to score on an error to plate the first run before Austin Machado singled home the second of the frame. The 'Bows had runners on first and second with one out looking to tie or take the lead, but a pair of strikeouts ended the frame.  
 
For the second straight day the Rainbow Warriors got on the board first, scoring a run in the second inning to go up 1-0. The Anteaters came right back once again though, plating four runs in the third to make it 4-1.
 
UCI added to its lead in the fourth with four more runs to chase UH starter Randy Abshier and stretch their lead to 8-1 before the Hawai'i rally.
 
Miyao and Duarte each drove in a pair of runs while Jake Tsukada and Zeigler-Namoa both turned in multi-hit games, with Tsukada going 2-for-3 and Zeigler-Namoa finishing 2-for-5 with a double. Machado also reached base for the 24th consecutive game to start the season.
 
The Rainbow Warriors and Anteaters close out their series Saturday afternoon at 1:05 p.m. at Les Murakami Stadium.