SAN JOSE, Calif. » It has been a bit of a struggle at the plate this year for Hawaii’s Garrett Champion. The senior backstop came into Friday night’s game at San Jose State with just five hits this year and a .122 batting average.
Nothing a pair of doubles can’t help. Champion had two two-baggers, one of which drove in two runs in the fourth to put the Rainbows up for good in a 6-4 victory. It was Hawaii’s first road win of the season.
Champion’s 2-for-3 put a 37-point charge into his batting average. He’s now hitting .159.
"I got a changeup and I was able to keep the hands back long enough to keep the ball in play and find a hole," Champion said. "It was elevated a little bit. With two strikes, I kind of shortened up and tried to get it on the ground and was able to get it through."
The hit came during a five-run inning that allowed Hawaii (22-15, 3-1 Western Athletic Conference) to take control of the game. Stephen Ventimilia followed Champion with a two-run single.
The beneficiary was Matt Sisto, who won his seventh game of the year, going 62⁄3 innings and allowing four runs, three earned. Two of the runs came after he exited when Jesse Moore allowed a two-run double to Michael Gerlach.
"It’s always nice to get a five-spot," Sisto said. "I’ll take that every time. I love throwing to Champ. He’s my favorite catcher to throw to. Every time he’s catching me, I feel comfortable."
Johnny Melero took the loss for the Spartans (18-15, 3-1). He deserved a little better as San Jose State committed two errors in the fourth inning, although one of those was a terrible pickoff throw by Melero that allowed Ventimilia to go all the way from first to third. Ventimilia later scored on Kaeo Aliviado’s chopper to first that Matt Lopez misplayed into an error.
Kalei Contrades, the 2011 All-State baseball Player of the Year from Saint Louis, started at designated hitter for the Spartans and went 1-for-4. The single came when he led off the fourth. He left runners at first and third when he flied out to end the first, grounded out to third in the sixth after Gerlach led off the inning with a single and grounded out to end the seventh following Gerlach’s double.
"We had that one bad inning where they scored those runs and put them ahead," Contrades said. "They did a good job of capitalizing on the errors that we made to take the lead and win this game."
San Jose State took a 1-0 lead in the first on Nick Schulz’s RBI single. Schulz has now hit safely in 21 out of 22 games. The Rainbows tied the score in the second on Breland Almadova’s solo home run. The Spartans took a 2-1 lead in the third, thanks to some sloppy defense by Hawaii. Jacob Valdez reached on a one-out error by third baseman Collin Bennett, who couldn’t handle Valdez’s chopper. To be fair, third base is the sun field in the evening at San Jose Municipal Stadium. Schulz followed with a perfect hit-and-run single right at the spot shortstop Pi‘ikea Kitamura had just vacated. Lopez followed with a sacrifice fly.
Rainbow coach Mike Trapasso was happy to get the road win after his team dropped its previous four.
"To win on the road is big," he said. "Against these guys as good as they’re playing right now. That’s a big win for us. We scored the five early and that had to hold up because we didn’t score again the rest of the game. If you score six on Friday, you have to make that hold up."
Next up will be a scorcher — temperatures are expected to be in the 90s today for Game 2 of the three-game series. Jarrett Arakawa (4-3) will take the mound for Hawaii against Esteban Guzman at 10 a.m.
