He might not have been as overpowering and a state title wasn’t on the line, but Quintin Torres-Costa made a another triumphant return to Les Murakami Stadium.
The 2012 Waiakea graduate pitched three scoreless innings of relief Saturday night and earned a victory when the University of Hawaii scratched across a run in the bottom of the 11th to beat UAB 3-2 in Honolulu.
Torres-Costa (2-0) didn’t surrender a hit and walked only one with four strikeouts for his second win in the past seven days.
“It was nice to win a game in the bullpen,” UH coach Mike Trepasso said on OCSports’ postgame show. “It was good for us to win a real tight game with pitching.”
The freshman left-hander took a redhirt last season after undergoing season-ending Tommy John surgery, and he made his 2014 debut Sunday with of inning of work against Nevada.
Torres-Costa came to Hawaii after pitching Waiakea to the 2012 Hawaii High School Athletic Association title on his future college field.
Jordan Richartz scored the winning run on Juliene Jones’ sacrifice fly. Richartz led off the inning with a single and moved to third on Marc Flores’ hit.
Torres-Costa took over after Jarrett Arakawa worked eight stellar innings.
“Lost in this whole thing was how great Jarrett threw,” Trepasso said.
The left-hander allowed only five hits and two runs — one earned — in eight innings with a walk and four strikeouts.
Trevor Podratz hit two doubles for UH (11-12), scoring on a wild pitch in the third and driving in the tying run in the seventh. Rickartz also finished with two hits.
Mitch Williams had a hand in both of the Blazers’ runs, including an RBI single in the fourth.
Hawaii has a chance to take 3 of 4 from UAB (17-7) when the teams conclude their four-game series at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Water polo
Top-ranked Southern Cal scored early and often in dunking UH 14-6 in Honolulu.
Earlier, the Rainbow Wahine (13-6) beat Indiana 9-5 behind Claire Nixon’s hat trick. Paula Chillida Esforzado added two goals against the Hoosiers (10-4). She scored three more against the Trojans (18-0), but each came after USC already had taken a 10-1 lead at halftime in a rematch of the national semifinal it won last year.
Sand volleyball
Second-seeded Brittany Tiegs and Karissa Cook of UH finished runner-up at the Jack in the Box Spring Challenge, losing in straight sets to Southern California’s Kirby Burnham and Sara Hughes, the top seeds, in Honolulu.
