Weary Rainbow Wahine sweep Toledo

This time each spring doesn’t afford the University of Hawaii softball team much of a break.

After concluding a three-day tournament on Sunday, the Rainbow Wahine had Monday off, then resumed their run of 19 games in 16 days by sweeping a doubleheader with Toledo on Tuesday.

UH senior Heather Morales homered in both games to support complete-game performances by junior right-handers Dana Thomsen and Brittany Hitchcock in 3-0 and 6-1 wins at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium.

UH will look to roll the momentum of a season-high three-game winning streak into the five-day Outrigger Spring Fling Tournament, which opens today at RWSS.

The Wahine (11-8) open the fourth of their five nonconference tournaments at 6 p.m. against Charleston Southern (10-13), which along with Toledo is sticking around for a second tournament.

The Wahine face No. 20 Utah (13-4) — which entered the week seventh in the nation in team earned-run average at 1.04 — on Thursday before taking on Toledo again on Friday. They close the weekend with two games against Marist (9-4).

“(Monday’s) day off, everybody still lifted, did some cardio,” Morales said. “Everybody got to relax, catch up on homework. But for the next two weeks its going to be nice to keep playing.

“The younger players are going to learn how to make adjustments every at-bat without having a practice to fix it.”

Toledo (7-14) won the Coca-Cola Malihini Kipa Aloha Tournament on Sunday, but fell to 0-3 against UH during its stay with Tuesday’s sweep.

The Wahine did all of their scoring with the long ball in the first of two sub-two-hour games. Angelique Ramos, Callee Heen and Morales each hit solo homers and Thomsen struck out a season-high 10 in a one-hit performance.

Thomsen held the Rockets without a hit over the final 62⁄3 innings in her second shutout in her last three starts.

Ramos gave UH the lead in the third with her third homer of the season and freshman left fielder Bree Soma helped preserve the shutout in the top of the fifth when she reached over the fence to rob Morgan Paaverud of a home run.

Thomsen didn’t allow a runner to reach second until the sixth and the Wahine gave her more breathing room in the bottom of the inning when Heen went deep to right field and Morales followed with a blast to left.

UH took the lead in the second game on Nicole Lopez’s two-run double in the third and Ramos’ looper into shallow left drove in two more. After Toledo scored its first run of the night in the fourth, Morales lined a two-run homer to left center in the fifth to cap the scoring.

Hitchcock (7-5), who is in graduate school, arrived in time to make her start and struck out four and walked one in the complete-game win.

“For the pitchers it’s a lot more focus for them,” UH coach Bob Coolen said of the packed schedule.

“Dana gave us a one-hitter and Brittany was in class until 6:30 and then she showed up. … She’s coming in (saying) “Give me the ball.’ She has pretty much 35, 40 minutes to reflect and then go out there and pitch.”