Not much has gone right for the University of Hawaii baseball team so far at UC Irvine, though nothing has been wrong with Jacob Igawa’s bat.
The former Waiakea standout cranked a three-run home run to stake his team to an early lead Saturday, but the Anteaters came back for a 12-5 win and went on to sweep a doubleheader from the suddenly slumping Rainbow Warriors in Irvine, Calif.
On the heels of a 10-game win streak, UH (11-6, 3-4 Big West) has now lost four in a row, including getting shutout in Friday night’s series opener.
Igawa’s first home run in a UH uniform — the sophomore hit one against the ‘Bows last season for UH-Hilo — highlighted a four-run first inning in the first game, but Cade Halemanu didn’t have it on the mound this time. After going 8 1/3 strong innings against Long Beach State a week ago, the sophomore right-hander lasted just 3 1/3 innings Saturday, giving up four runs on seven hits (including Nathan Church’s homer) as the Anteaters (13-7, 7-0) went ahead by scoring five runs in the fourth.
In the second game, UH lost 4-3. Waiakea alums Safea Villaruz-Mauai and Stone Miyao each went 2 for 4. Villaruz-Mauai’s RBI single in the sixth cut into a 3-0 deficit, and Kole Kaler’s two-run double an inning later tied the game. Irvine pushed in an unearned run off of reliever Li’i Pontes (1-1) in the bottom of the seventh and won despite being outhit 11-8.
Freshman left-hander Austin Teixeira worked six innings, allowing six hits with three strikeouts and a walk,
Miyao’s double in the third was his second of the season, and his single in the ninth gave him his second multihit game. The second baseman reached third with one out as the potential game-tying run but was stranded.
Igawa has made the most of his playing time this season. The designated hitter in the first game, he also singled in the ninth and came around to score lifting his average to .333. Half of his eight starts have resulted in multihit games.
Buddie Pindel (2-2) was ineffective in relief of Halemanu, allowing five hits and four runs in 3 2/3 innings. Irvine belted 16 hits
Hawaii looks to salvage the series finale Sunday with senior Logan Pouelsen on the mound.
In Friday’s 4-0 defeat, ace Aaron Davenport suffered his first loss in five starts. He struck out six in five innings, but relinquished four runs, two of them earned.
Trenton Denholm pitched seven scoreless innings and UC Irvine made the most of its five hits.
Kamehameha-Hawaii alum Dallas Duarte singled to lead off the third but was out when the next batter, Matt Campos, lined into a double play. Duarte was replaced at catcher in the bottom half of the inning, and ESPN Honolulu’s Josh Pacheco tweeted before Saturday’s games that Duarte was out for the remainder of the series with a shoulder injury.
UH men win in 4
Tested through 2 1 /2 sets, top-ranked Hawaii surged away from No. 12 UC San Diego in a four-set victory Friday at SimpliFi Arena.
The Rainbow Warriors and Tritons split the first two sets and UCSD led 17-16 in the third. But UH (8-0, 3-0 Big West ) reclaimed control with a 5-1 run on its way to taking the set and dominated the Tritons (1-6, 1-2 ) in the fourth set to close out a 25-21, 23-25, 25-21, 25-15 win in the Warriors’ home opener.
UH senior Rado Parapunov led the Warriors with 17 kills and reached a milestone with his 100th career ace, becoming the eighth UH player to reach triple-digit and catching past UH greats Yuval Katz and Sivan Leoni.
Senior Colton Cowell put down 14 kills and freshman Chaz Galloway had a career-high 13 kills while hitting.417 and had six digs and was in on four blocks.
On Saturday night, UH had aeasier time with the Tritans, beating them for the 17th consecutive time, 25-15, 25-19, 25-21.