In its last home series, Hawaii swept UC Davis with its hitting.
Two weeks later, the Rainbow Warriors are on the verge of another sweep because of their pitching.
Junior Tyler Brashears continued what L.J. Brewster started on Friday and Quintin Torres-Costa shut the door on CSUN again in Hawaii’s 3-1 victory on Saturday night at Les Murakami Stadium.
Brashears (5-4) scattered nine hits over eight innings and gave up only one run without walking a batter. He struck out six before giving way to Torres-Costa, who struck out two and earned his third save and second in as many nights in front of a crowd of 2,446.
Hawaii (14-23, 5-6 Big West) has allowed one run in 18 innings against the Matadors (22-15, 2-9) and improved to 5-0 in conference home games while clinching the series.
"I think our guys will use these two games to see what we’ve been preaching all year is really the case. You win close games by eliminating the things that get you beat — walks and errors," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "Tyler really didn’t have a breaking ball to speak of, but settled in in the middle innings and was real good, and that eighth inning might allow (Torres-Costa) to pitch one inning (on Sunday) if his arm is feeling good."
Brashears has given up one earned run or none in six of his past seven starts and lowered his ERA to 2.09
He gave up a leadoff single to start the seventh and then retired six in a row to end the game at 102 pitches.
"Coach wanted to pull me after the seventh, but I told him I felt good and he let me go out there for the eighth," Brashears said. "I would say most of their hits were when I got behind in the count, but definitely not walking anyone kept the big innings from happening."
Hawaii had half of its eight hits in the series in the first inning as Alex Sawelson and Eric Ramirez hit RBI singles to put UH ahead 2-0.
UH scored first for the fifth straight game and got to CSUN starter Jerry Keel (4-4) early, which was key.
Once Keel settled in, he was effectively wild and Hawaii had a hard time figuring him out.
Keel issued two-out walks in three consecutive innings to bring his pitch count up quickly, but he didn’t allow a hit until facing his final batter with two outs in the sixth.
With Marcus Doi on third and JJ Kitaoka at second, Stephen Ventimilia hit a grounder deep in the hole at short and beat it out at first for a single to score Doi. Kitaoka tried to score behind Doi on the play, but was thrown out by Nolan Flashman.
Keel walked six in six innings with four strikeouts.
"We’ve been able to scratch across a couple of runs and our starting pitching has shut the door," said Ventimilia, who is playing this weekend for the first time without a brace since injuring his knee against Pepperdine.
His speed showed on both of his hits, which didn’t get out of the infield. He’s scored or driven in three of the four runs Hawaii has in the series and stole a base on Saturday.
"I have a lot more mobility, and it’s a freeing feeling knowing I don’t have that (brace) locking down my leg," Ventimilia said.
CSUN scored its only run of the series in the third inning when Nolan Bumstead singled home Yusuke Akitoshi with two outs.
The Matadors had a run taken away in the first inning when Bumstead’s two-out double bounced over the wall in right-center, forcing Justin Toerner, who was on first, to go back to third instead of scoring.
CSUN tried to get aggressive on the basepaths after a stolen base in the second inning. Hawaii catcher Chayce Ka‘aua threw out William Colantono stealing second to end the fourth and easily threw out Flashman trying to swipe third with one out in the fifth.
Brashears then ended the sixth picking off Nick Murphy at first as CSUN ran itself out of scoring chances multiple times.
"I got a sense early on that they were going to try to run often," Brashears said. "We got two guys thrown out and then a guy picked off, so overall I think we managed the run game pretty good."
