On an odd day of baseball, Hawaii and UC Riverside broke even.
The Rainbow Warriors held on for a 5-4 victory Saturday in a continuation of a game that was suspended in the third inning Friday because of heavy rain and lightning. In Saturday’s second game at Les Murakami Stadium, the Highlanders amassed 18 hits, including nine for doubles, in a 9-2 rout. The Highlanders tied a record for most doubles by a UH opponent.
“That was a split on a long, wet day,” said UH coach Mike Trapasso, whose ’Bows are 19-12 overall and 5-3 in the Big West. “What do they say about splitting a doubleheader? It’s like kissing your sister.”
Mother Nature also had input into what was essentially a doubleheader.
“It was a long, wet, soggy — did I say long? — day,” Trapasso said. “We played basically six hours in the rain. Yeah, it’s not conducive to good baseball. But you know what? We played good enough to win the first game, and they played good enough to win the second game.”
The first game picked up with UH shortstop Maaki Yamazaki on second base and Logan Pouelsen in the batter’s box with two outs. Pouelsen singled home Yamazaki to push the ’Bows ahead, 2-1. In the fourth, Dustin Demeter hit his first homer of the season — a two-run blast over the wall in right field — to make it 4-1.
The Highlanders tied it at 4 with a three-run sixth. But in the bottom of the eighth, Ethan Lopez doubled to the left-field corner. He advanced to third on Demeter’s flyout to deep right. Right-handed Jared Morton, UCR’s closer and registered owner of a hard-biting slider, intentionally walked the left-hitting Yamazaki to face the right-swinging Johnny Weeks.
“That was the right play, especially with Morton,” Trapasso acknowledged. “His slider is pretty devastating.”
Weeks then hit a slider to center, scoring Yamazaki with the go-ahead run.
“I was trying to do whatever I could to win the ballgame,” Weeks said.
Dylan Thomas pitched a scoreless ninth for his 10th save.
UH’s good feelings lasted about an hour. The Highlanders were able to oust UH’s Neil Uskali with two outs in the second inning, his shortest outing as a ’Bow. Uskali exited with a 5-0 deficit after relinquishing seven hits and a walk to 13 batters.
In Uskali’s three previous games, opponents were hitting .478 the first time through the order and .176 thereafter. Uskali appeared to be frustrated with what the ’Bows perceived to be a tight strike zone by umpire Robert McKinley.
“I thought about leaving him in there to see if he could settle it,” Trapasso said of Uskali. “But to be honest, when they started hitting sliders that were right at the ankles and hitting those solid, I just said, ‘This isn’t your day.’ ”
It was not reliever Kash Koltermann’s day, either. Koltermann allowed three hits and two runs in 2 1⁄3 innings.
Trapasso praised reliever Scott Bellina, then offered an apology. Bellina was making his first appearance of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery to repair an elbow injury in January 2017. Bellina pitched a scoreless eighth, but was rocked for two runs in the ninth.
“I owe Bellina,” Trapasso said. “That was horrible coaching on my part to send him out for the second inning. … He’s 14 months post-op. I got greedy and shouldn’t have sent him out there for the ninth. I owe him two runs on his night. They should give those two earned runs and the ERA to me.”
Meanwhile, the ’Bows could not solve UCR starting pitcher Cole Percival, whose father, Troy, is the Highlanders’ head coach and a former major league reliever ranked 11th in career saves.
“He’s just good,” Trapasso said of the younger Percival. “He’s Troy Percival’s son.”
Asked what Percival threw best, Trapasso quipped: “He was throwing good genes at us.”
The teams meet today at 1:05 p.m. in the finale of the three-game series.
