HONOLULU – The Hawai'i baseball team slugged four home runs and got yet another strong pitching performance to extend its nation-best winning streak to 11 games with a 11-3 victory over UC Riverside Sunday.
The winning streak is the longest by the program since 1995 and is now the only active double-digit win streak in the country. It's also tied for the third longest winning streak by a UH team since 1992 when the NCAA began limiting the amount of games teams could play.
For the third straight game, the 'Bows jumped out to an early lead this time scoring five runs in the first.
Matthew Miura put UH on the board with a run-scoring triple before
Itsuki Takemoto delivered his first career RBI with a base hit to center. After a single put two runners on,
Elijah Ickes blasted a three-run shot out to left field for his first career homer to make it 5-0.
UH added three more in the third to break things open. Takemoto delivered his second RBI of the day by legging out an infield hit to make it 6-0 and
Jared Quandt came through with a two-run double one batter later to stretch the lead to 8-0.
After the Highlanders got on the board with a run in the sixth, the 'Bows came right back with a pair of solo homers in the bottom half.
Jared Quandt delivered his third hit of the day with a leadoff shot out to right before
Jordan Donahue followed two batters later with his second homer of the season down the right field line to make it 10-1.
Quandt then hit his second solo homer of the day with one out in the eighth inning to cap off a 4-for-4 day at the plate.
Harrison Bodendorf earned the win in his second consecutive start, pitching five innings and holding UCR to a run on just two hits with five strikeouts.
Danny Veloz shut the Highlanders out over the next 1.2 frames before
Brayden Marx pitched the final 2.1 innings.
The bottom half of the Hawai'i lineup led the charge, as 7-8-9 hitters Takemoto, Quandt and Ickes combined to go 7-for-12 with nine RBIs and six runs scored. Quandt homered multiple times for the second time in his career and became the first Rainbow Warrior to blast two homers in a game this year.
The Rainbow Warriors will hit the road for a three-game series at Long Beach State starting Friday at 3 p.m. HT.
