For the University of Hawaii baseball team, the wake-up alarm sounded in the eighth inning.
The Rainbow Warriors rallied for two runs in the eighth for Friday night’s 3-2 victory over Nevada at Les Murakami Stadium.
A crowd of 1,481 watched the ’Bows improve to 17-8, their best 25-game start since 2007, and extend their winning streak to seven.
The previous night’s 12-5 victory “was a little easier on the heart,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “But this was a (close) game we needed. … Our kids will play hard until the last out, and they’ll play with passion.”
Nevada right-hander Mark Nowaczewski’s name can be a tongue twister, but it was his pitching that was more pronounced through the first seven innings, when he did not issue a walk.
But with the Bows trailing 2-1 in the eighth, Dylan Vchulek blooped a 2-2 pitch into right field for a one-out single. A pitch earlier, Nowaczewski threw a fastball that umpire Dwayne Finley ruled to have caught the outside edge of the plate. Nowaczewski then threw again to the same spot.
“This time, I threw my hands at it, and let the baseball go to work,” Vchulek said of the opposite-field hit.
The next batter, shortstop Dustin Demeter, had faced Nowaczewski’s full repertoire of changeups, curves and fastballs in his three previous at-bats. He also knew Nowaczewski had yet to issue a walk.
“We had an idea he was going to fill the strike zone with a lot of fastballs,” Demeter said. “You go up there with that approach, hopefully it pays dividends for you. Luckily, it did.”
Demeter pulled a drive to right-center. Right fielder Mike Echavia raced in, but the ball dropped in front and then bounced over his glove and rolled to the wall.
“When Dustin came through, I turned on the burners,” said Vchulek, who raced home to tie it at 2.
When he saw the ball bounce, Demeter said, “I got extremely excited. I was going to keep running until they told me to stop.”
Demeter was held at third with his first triple of the season.
Nowaczewski then intentionally walked Kekai Rios and inadvertently walked Adam Fogel to load the bases for left-handed first baseman Eric Ramirez.
Earlier, Nevada had put on a shift where the shortstop and second baseman were east of the second-base bag. This time, they had a modified movement, which — for a movement — caused Ramirez to consider putting down a drag bunt. Instead, he said, “I tried to be disciplined. I tried to wait for my pitch.”
It never came. Ramirez drew a walk to bring home Demeter with the go-ahead run.
“Why try to hit a ball when I could walk and score a run that way?” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said the ’Bows, who averaged 9.3 runs in the previous six games, were not in panic mode. “In the dugout,” Ramirez said, “it was like, ‘It’s time. Let’s wake it up.’”
Dylan Thomas, who recovered from back tightness suffered three weeks ago, pitched the final two innings for the victory.
It was a tough loss for Nowaczewski, who had not lasted beyond six innings in his previous five starts, during which he struggled with a 7.25 earned-run average and 1.94 WHIP.
“We had a hard time seeing the ball off their pitcher,” Trapasso said. “He had a good downward tilt today, and he threw down in the zone. We weren’t able to get good swings off of him. He held us at bay most of the game.”
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