HONOLULU – After falling behind early, the Hawai'i baseball team rallied back to finish off a sweep of Cal State Fullerton with a 5-2 win before a crowd of 4,763 at Les Murakami Stadium Saturday.
The win improved the Rainbow Warriors to 18-2 over their final 20 games of the season – tied for the best record nationally for any team in their last 20 games. It also gave the 'Bows their 20th Big West win, marking the first time UH won 20 conference games in a season since 1992.
UH also ended the regular season on an 11-game home winning streak, good for the second-longest active one nationally.
Fullerton came out swinging, hitting back-to-back homers to start the game to go up 2-0. The 'Bows would come right back, though, scoring once in the bottom of the inning and twice in the second to go in front.
After a
Kyson Donahue RBI groundout put UH on the board, back-to-back run-scoring doubles in the second gave Hawai'i the lead.
Jared Quandt ripped a double off the wall in right to tie it up before
Elijah Ickes plated him one batter later with a two-bagger to left field to make it 3-2.
Senior
Jake Tsukada widened the lead in the fifth inning with an RBI double to left field to score
Jordan Donahue, making it 4-2.
Austin Machado scored Tsukada on the very next pitch with a base knock to right to stretch the Rainbow Warrior lead to three.
Connor Harrison got the Senior Night start and went three innings before giving way to
Zacary Tenn who earned the win after working the next 3.1 scoreless with four strikeouts.
Itsuki Takemoto took it the rest of the way to earn his team-leading fifth save, working 2.2 perfect innings with four strikeouts.
Following the game, UH honored 14 seniors who have combined for 767 career starts.
Randy Abshier,
Tai Atkins,
Naighel Ali'i Calderon,
Nainoa Cardinez,
Kyson Donahue,
Dallas Duarte,
Tyler Dyball,
Connor Harrison,
Blake Hiraki,
Trevor Ichimura,
Stone Miyao,
Sean Rimmer,
Jake Tsukada and
Aaron Ujimori were all recognized following the game.
The Rainbow Warriors will wait to see if they receive an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament Monday on the NCAA Selection Show at 6 a.m. HT on ESPN2.
