• Photo gallery: Sunday Oregon vs. Hawaii baseball

As long as Madison Boer toed the rubber, a third consecutive come-from-behind victory wasn’t in reach.

Oregon’s junior right-hander threw eight innings of one-hit ball and the ninth-ranked Ducks kept alive a chance at a series split with a 4-0 victory over the Rainbows yesterday at Les Murakami Stadium.

Boer kept a crowd of 2,477 silent throughout, taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Kolten Wong broke it up with a one-out single to right, but it was the only hit the Rainbows (2-1) mustered.

"We didn’t bring a whole lot of pitchers, so I was just trying to eat up some innings," Boer said. "A lot of fastballs early in the count to get ahead and then keep the ball down with two strikes."

Boer’s performance gave the Ducks (1-2) a chance to gain some momentum following consecutive late-inning losses to open the season. On Friday, Hawaii erased a 3-1 deficit in the eighth to pull out the win and did it again on Saturday after trailing in both the eighth and ninth frames.

"(Boer’s performance) magnifies itself because of how good we think the Rainbows are," Oregon coach George Horton said. "We ran some pretty good pitchers against them on Friday and Saturday, and they were able to hit the ball well."

Hawaii made a few changes to its lineup, moving Pi’ikea Kitamura to catcher and starting freshman Conner George at third.

Senior Sean Montplaisir, who hit the ninth-inning double off the wall on Saturday to set up Breland Almadova’s walk-off hit, replaced Zack Swasey in left field to give UH another left-handed bat against Boer.

George and Montplaisir drew walks and were two of only four UH batters to reach base. Boer and Kellen Moen, who pitched a perfect ninth, combined to face just two over the minimum.

"I’m going to give all the credit to the way Boer threw," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "He had a cutter slider to our righties and a little split change to our lefties that we had no answer for."

UH has lived on the edge all series, falling behind early in all three games. Tyler Kuresa drove in Oregon’s first run with an RBI single in the second and two more UH errors allowed the Ducks to take a 2-0 lead in the third.

Hawaii has committed eight errors in three games.

"We’ve got to do a better job of taking care of the baseball and play a little more like we’re not satisfied with beating a great team the first two days," Trapasso said. "I don’t know if we were gassed or we were satisfied, but we shouldn’t be either."

Senior Alex Capaul (0-1) battled through adversity early to give the Rainbows six innings, allowing six hits and three runs (two earned). Oregon scored in three of the first four innings, but Capaul retired nine of the final 10 batters he faced.

"Everything was elevated all day long, but you look up and he gives you six innings with three runs and against a team like this I’ll take my chances with that every time," Trapasso said.

Catcher Jack Marder finished 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs, and Ryan Hambright and Danny Pulfer had two hits apiece for Oregon.

The Ducks can earn a split of the series with a win tonight and will send Alex Keudell to the mound opposite UH’s Jesse Moore.

Although it’s only the first week of the season, Horton, who won a national championship coaching Cal State Fullerton in 1994, knows that the difference between a split and losing three of four could matter come NCAA tournament time.

"(Hawaii is) a playoff-worthy team, and if we don’t end up winning a Pac-10 championship, it could come down to Hawaii and us being on the bubble for an at-large," Horton said. "I’ve been around long enough to know that some of my teams at Cal State Fullerton were able to sneak in because we got a split or won two out of three in a big nonconference series like this one."

First pitch tonight is scheduled for 6:35 p.m.