HONOLULU – Gabe Wright played the hero on Sunday afternoon, delivering a walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th inning to vault the Hawai'i baseball team to a thrilling 6-5 series-clinching victory over Cal State Fullerton at Les Murakami Stadium.
With the game knotted at 5-5 and the bases loaded with nobody out in the bottom of the 10th, Wright stepped to the plate and smacked an ball the opposite way to the base of the wall in right center field off Titans reliever Andrew Wright, scoring
Noah Rodriguez from third and setting off a Rainbow Warrior celebration.
Before Wright's 10th-inning heroics sealed the rubber match, the series finale was a tense, back-and-forth battle. Cal State Fullerton (12-15, 6-6 Big West) scratched across a run in the third inning to take an early 1-0 lead.
The Rainbow Warriors (15-11, 5-7 Big West) responded in the fifth when
Ben Zeigler-Namoa blasted a two-run home run—his third of the season—to temporarily put Hawai'i in front, 2-1. Zeigler-Namoa anchored the middle of the lineup, finishing the day 2-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBIs.
The Titans answered with a three-run surge in the top of the sixth to reclaim a 4-2 advantage. However, Hawai'i mounted a crucial three-run rally of its own in the eighth inning to retake a 5-4 lead. Pinch-hitter
Mana Lau Kong came through with a clutch RBI double to pull UH within a run.
Elijah Ickes then dove in under a tag on a
Jake Redding RBI fielder's choice to tie it up, before
Taylor Takata scampered home on a passed ball to give Hawai'i the lead.
Cal State Fullerton managed to push across the tying run in the top of the ninth to force extra innings. However, the Hawai'i bullpen, utilizing a committee of seven relievers after freshman starter
Brody Martin-Grudzielanek allowed just one run over four solid innings of one-run ball, kept it there and helped UH stay in the game over the final six innings.
Senior
Saul Soto (2-0) earned the victory after pitching a hitless 10th inning, working around a pair of walks and striking out one to set the stage for Wright's dramatic walk-off in the bottom half of the frame.
The Rainbow Warriors will hit the road again for a three-game conference series at UC San Diego starting Thursday at 3:00 p.m. HT.
