Trust your defense.

It’s a phrase often spoken by Hawaii senior Matt Sisto, who took his own advice to heart on Thursday night.

The Rainbows turned three double plays behind the 6-foot-5 right-hander, who allowed his first earned runs of the season late in an otherwise lights-out performance, guiding Hawaii to a 6-3 victory over Wichita State in the opener of a four-game set at Les Murakami Stadium.

The Shockers (5-4) tagged Sisto for three runs in the eighth after he breezed through the first seven innings, throwing only 62 pitches.

His consecutive innings streak without allowing an earned run ended at 29, but it was enough to give Sisto (3-0) his third straight win to start his senior year.

"They just started barreling everything up again and kind of figured out my changeup," said Sisto, who hasn’t walked a batter in his past 17 innings. "They’re a good-hitting team, you saw it tonight. They swing and they’re aggressive and got me when I was up a little bit, which is what happens."

A two-run single by Kevin Hall off reliever Brent Harrison brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth before Erik Harbutz grounded into a fielder’s choice, much to the delight of the 1,107 in attendance.

Harrison worked a perfect ninth to end the game.

Hawaii (7-3) matched its best 10-game start to a season since 2007, winning its sixth straight.

"We were good in all phases tonight and I was real impressed with (Sisto) forcing contact early in the count," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "They got to him a little bit the fourth time through the lineup, but they were all singles and there were no walks or errors to make it worse."

Zack Swasey doubled, tripled and drove in two runs, and Pi‘ikea Kitamura went 3-for-4 with a triple and two RBIs.

The Rainbows had 13 hits for the second straight game, matching a season high.

"Offensively, when you know you got a guy out there that’s going to put up zeroes, it allows you to get into a rhythm," Kitamura said. "The next thing you know you’ve got a good six-run cushion."

Swasey got the Rainbows’ offense going in the fourth, legging out a one-out triple off the wall in right, barely beating the relay throw to third.

With the infield drawn in, Kitamura sent a ground ball back up the middle for a base hit to score Swasey.

Then things really got interesting.

After a wild pitch moved Kitamura into scoring position, Kaeo Aliviado blooped a single to shallow center.

Kitamura tried to score on the play and was about to be called out at the plate when catcher Ryan Hege dropped the ball.

"He tagged me out and then he dropped it, but at third, there was some stuff over there with the third baseman trying to get in my way of the bag," Kitamura said. "That’s just baseball right there."

Wichita State coach Gene Stephenson came out to argue with third-base umpire John Bullock. On his way back to the dugout, he exchanged words with UH hitting coach Rusty McNamara.

Trapasso emerged from his dugout to exchange words with plate umpire Chris Griffith before order was restored.

"The third baseman was doing some deeks and it caused Pi‘ikea to kind of shuffle his feet, but I don’t know if there was any real arguing," Trapasso said. "It was more just talking."

Swasey ended Wichita starter Josh Smith’s day in his next at-bat, ripping a two-out double down the third-base line that scored two more for a 4-0 lead.

Smith (1-1), who tossed seven shutout innings in the Shockers’ only win against Hawaii last year, gave up four runs on six hits in 42⁄3 innings with three walks and six strikeouts.

He had only given up three hits in 111⁄3 innings entering Thursday’s game.

"Our offense did a real nice job tonight," Trapasso said. "We got big hits, we got hits with guys in scoring position, we got hits with two outs — it was a team effort."

Kitamura added an RBI triple in the seventh and Trevor Podratz singled with two outs to drive in Kitamura to give the Rainbows two insurance runs they ended up needing.