Star-Advertiser staff
The last three Big West Conference pitcher of the week awards went to the two starters in Saturday’s game at Blair Field.
There’s a good chance a fourth is on the way Monday.
Hawaii junior Tyler Brashears extended his scoreless innings streak to 21 with another eight-inning gem and Quintin Torres-Costa earned another save in Hawaii’s 1-0 win over host Long Beach State.
The Rainbow Warriors (17-26, 8-9) moved into a fifth-place tie with the Dirtbags (23-19, 8-9) and clinched their first road series win since March 2014 against UC Santa Barbara.
Brashears (7-4) matched a season-high eight innings for the second time in three weeks and has given up only one run in his last three starts — all wins.
He’s 4-2 with a 1.25 ERA in conference games and has an overall ERA of 1.78.
"It was just Tyler being Tyler," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "The mark of a lot of good pitchers is if you don’t get to them early, they start to get going, and his last few starts have kind of been that way. He gets stronger as he goes and pitches that aren’t working for him early he’s able to make adjustments on and find.
"The last couple of innings he found the slider that he couldn’t throw for a strike early on and got a couple of big outs with that."
Torres-Costa picked up his fifth consecutive save and sixth total just one night after throwing 37 pitches to close out a 7-4 win.
He gave up a leadoff single in the ninth that was erased by a double play, and a fly ball to center was caught by Kaeo Aliviado to end it.
Torres-Costa hasn’t given up a run in 181⁄3 consecutive innings as part of a bullpen that has gone 14 innings without allowing a run over the past five games.
"I really debated sending (Brashears) out there for the ninth and he wanted to go," Trapasso said. "(Torres-Costa) went down in the eighth to get loose and told me he felt great and had an inning in him.
"That’s the luxury of having him established in that bullpen now. You ride the hot hand as long he’s feeling good."
LBSU freshman Chris Mathewson managed to lower his league-leading ERA to 1.39 but was saddled with the loss to drop to 5-4.
The right-hander allowed one run over eight innings on six hits with one walk and eight strikeouts. He won two consecutive BWC weekly pitching honors before Brashears won it this week following a 1-0 win over No. 9 UC Santa Barbara.
Hawaii has won a game by a 1-0 margin in three straight series.
"That’s so rare," Trapasso said. "It’s been a pretty crazy year."
Chayce Ka‘aua hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning to score Alex Sawelson, who led off with a double for the only run of the game.
Jacob Sheldon-Collins went 3-for-4 with a double and Ka‘aua was 1-for-2 with his team-leading ninth double.
Ka‘aua ended the eighth inning throwing out Garrett Hampson stealing second after his two-out single.
He also threw out Nolan Meadows trying to swipe second to end the top of the fifth and leads UH with a .284 batting average.
"When you consider the focus is on his defense and for him to be able to hit over .280 while handling our pitching staff, that’s a heckuva year," Trapasso said.
Hawaii was without assistant coach Rusty McNamara, who served an automatic one-game suspension after getting tossed in Friday’s game.
Since getting swept at Cal Poly, UH has given up an average of 2.9 runs over its last eight games.
Hawaii entered the series 1-10 in true road games and 2-12 in games played away from Les Murakami Stadium.
The ‘Bows have won eight of their last 14 conference games.
A win on Sunday would give Hawaii its first road series sweep as a member of the Big West Conference.
