Cooper K’s 11 as ‘Bows blow past Bears

The Hawaii baseball team put its brand new scoreboard to work right away.

The Rainbow Warriors tallied a season high in runs to support starter Matt Cooper, who tied a career high with 11 strikeouts for the second consecutive week in a 17-0 shutout of New York Institute of Technology on Friday night.

A Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 1,792 got the first look at the new video scoreboard in right-center field that was kept busy by the UH offense.

Marc Flores hit his fifth home run of the season and drove in four runs for Hawaii (16-25), which ended a four-game losing streak with its third double-digit scoring output of the season.

Adam Hurley went 3-for-4 with two doubles and two runs scored, and catcher Tyler Young, making his second start of the season, added two hits and an RBI.

Senior Kalei Hanawahine, who made just his third start since March 22, had a career-high four hits with two runs and two RBIs as Hawaii scored its most runs in a game since a 19-3 win over Wagner on Feb. 26, 2012.

"It’s a good win for us," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "(NYIT) had an absolute nightmare travel day and you could see that coming out, but they’ll have more fight tomorrow and on Sunday."

Cooper (4-4) won for the first time since March 28 despite throwing nine shutout innings and 132 pitches in a loss to Cal State Fullerton last Friday.

The senior right-hander, who lowered his season ERA to 1.62, hasn’t allowed a run in 14 consecutive innings after blowing away NYIT (4-37).

Nine of the first 11 Bears to bat struck out as Cooper tied the most strikeouts in a game by a UH pitcher since Sam Spangler had 13 in a win over New Mexico State in 2010.

Instead, he settled for 11 as he was taken out after five innings and 73 pitches.

"I’m a little concerned about Coop because he was tired and a little bit tender," Trapasso said. "I thought about taking him out after four, but once we had the big lead I wanted to get him five and get him a win."

Joshua Canabal snuck a base hit back up the middle for the Bears’ only hit off Cooper, whose only other baserunner allowed came on a one-out walk in the fifth.

The 17 runs Hawaii scored was more than double the eight total it had pushed across in Cooper’s five Big West outings.

"I think last week took a lot out of me, but I was glad I was able to go five and to go out after (73) pitches, it was pretty nice," Cooper said.

Hawaii made quick work of NYIT starter John Duggan, who allowed seven runs on seven hits and four walks in 313 innings to drop to 0-7 this season.

The Bears, who had won three of six after losing 33 of their first 34 games, fell behind 10-0 in the fourth inning as Hawaii scored six times on seven hits.

Flores delivered the big blow with a three-run dinger to right to give him one more this season than UH had all of last year.

Hurley and LJ Brewster ended the inning with back-to-back RBI doubles to make it 10-0.

Hawaii added seven more runs and sent 12 men to the plate in the seventh inning, which began with a double by Hanawahine.

"We love the kid for who he is and his toughness and maturity and all year long he’s understood that he’s been struggling, but he’s worked," Trapasso said. "It’s been a tough year for him, but he hasn’t complained, has gone out and worked and to go out and have a day like today I couldn’t be happier for someone like Kalei."

Young started for the second straight day before he was replaced by Alan Baldwin in the seventh inning with UH way ahead.

E—Joannou; Martelli 2; Wobrock. DP—NYIT 2. LOB—NYIT 5; Hawaii 11. 2B—Hanawahine; Flores; Hurley 2; Brewster. HR—Flores. HBP—Daru; Canabal. SB—Hurley.

WP—Forster; Sinnott. HBP—by Gleese (Canabal); by Gleese (Daru). BK—Duggan 2. Umpires—(Plate): Gary Gilman. (First): Tom Chandler. (Third): Allen Williams. T—2:45. A—1,792.