West Virginia takes it to the Rainbows

Hawaii clearly has West Virginia’s full attention now.

The Mountaineers rebounded from Thursday’s loss, using an ultra-aggressive approach at the plate to even the series with a 4-1 victory over the Rainbow Warriors on Friday night at Les Murakami Stadium.

Twenty-one of the 38 West Virginia batters in the game saw two pitches or fewer. KC Huth and Kyle Gray put the game away with consecutive two-out RBI hits in the sixth inning — both on first-pitch swings — to help the Mountaineers (6-2) earn their sixth win in the past seven games in front of a crowd of 1,595.

“I tell them all the time — you don’t get your name in the paper by taking strikes,” West Virginia coach Randy Mazey said. “You can’t hit it if you don’t swing at it and we’ve got some good hitters in the lineup.”

Senior Kyle Von Ruden (1-1) took his first loss for Hawaii (5-6) despite pitching through the eighth inning for the second consecutive start.

Von Ruden set a career high with six strikeouts and didn’t walk a batter, but gave up nine hits, with three going for extra bases.

“They were aggressive, so when I went after them with fastballs they ran into a couple of them,” Von Ruden said.

Hawaii couldn’t figure out WVU starter Ross Vance (3-0), who gave up four hits in seven innings.

UH had just six hits in the game and was 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.

“That guy was really, really good. He was funky, he competed, we didn’t have an answer for him, but we battled until the last pitch,” Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. “We’re growing with every game. They just beat us tonight because they’re good and he was really good.”

West Virginia had played five games without trailing until losing the series opener 4-1 on Thursday.

It responded by attacking Von Ruden from the very first hitter, when Kyle Davis launched the first pitch of the game deep to right for an out.

The Mountaineers strung together three hits after that, with first baseman Jackson Cramer singling home Darius Hill with two outs.

Von Ruden’s first 14 pitches were all strikes, and he didn’t shy away from challenging WVU the entire game.

Of his 91 pitches, only 21 were balls.

“There are times when you’re throwing as many strikes as he was tonight, you might be throwing too many when it’s to a team as aggressive as (West Virginia) is,” Trapasso said. “But that’s what we do. We pound first pitch and we also got a lot of first-pitch outs.”

Shaun Corso, who was 3-for-4, followed Cramer’s hit with a single and then Von Ruden struck out the next three Mountaineers.

Hawaii evened the game in the bottom of the fourth inning when Casey Ryan, getting his first start at designated hitter, singled home Alex Fitchett with one out.

Hawaii tried a squeeze play with Josh Rojas at the plate, but Rojas missed a bunt and Alan Baldwin was picked off between third and home for the second out.

WVU quickly went back in front with an unearned run in the fifth inning.

“We had a chance there and Alan just got too aggressive off third base,” Trapasso said. “That killed the one real chance we had to put up some runs.”

Jacob Sheldon-Collins singled in the eighth inning to extend his hitting streak to 10 games.

Michael Grove pitched the final two scoreless innings to earn his first save for WVU.

WEST VIRGINIA 4, HAWAII 1

E–Weeks, Hill. DP-0. LOB–WVA 7, UH 7. 2B–Hill, Cramer, LoCoco. 3B–Gray. HBP–Davis, Baldwin. SH–Sheldon-Collins, Galusky. SF–Hill. CS-Hill, Galusky.

HBP–by Von Ruden (Davis); by Vance (Baldwin). Umpires–(Plate): Rob Hansen. (First): Eric Petersen. (Third): Scott Higgins. T–2:21. A–1,595.