Down to the wire

It was only fitting this week’s series between Hawaii and San Francisco came down to the final out.

Jesse Moore got pinch hitter Tyler Schultz to ground out to first with the tying run on second base to give the Rainbows a 3-2 win over the Dons on Sunday at Les Murakami Stadium.

The victory ended a 21-game homestand for the Rainbows, who are 14-7 after winning three of four against USF (10-11) by a total of four runs.

Neither team scored more than three times in any game, and Hawaii yielded only three earned runs in four games to lower its team ERA to 2.39, ranking in the top 20 in the country.

"I don’t think (anyone) who has watched all of these games would have expected anything else," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "It was another dogfight just like we expected."

A Sunday crowd of 1,419 had its share of anxious moments, beginning with UH leaving the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth without scoring.

Moore, who missed last week’s series against Central Michigan to attend to a family matter, allowed a two-out single to Jason Mahood and walked pinch hitter Bob Mott to put the go-ahead run on base in the ninth.

With reliever Brent Harrison — who had already thrown twice in the series — warming up in the bullpen, Trapasso stuck with his four-year senior, who got Schultz to roll over a 3-2 pitch, grounding out to first to end the game.

"I think I might have been trying to do too much, maybe got a little too amped or whatever," said Moore, who earned his second save. "I tried to settle down as much as possible and keep the ball down, let our defense do the work, and they played great today."

Hawaii didn’t commit an error for the second straight game, helping make a winner out of reliever Lawrence Chew (1-1).

Chew stepped in for starter Jon Flinn in the fifth and retired nine of the 10 batters he faced, allowing one hit.

Singles by Stephen Ventimilia and Breland Almadova chased USF starter Christian Cecilio (1-3) in the fifth, and a fielder’s choice RBI by Swasey scored Ventimilia for what proved to be the winning run.

Ventimilia continued his recent hot streak, going 2-for-4 with two runs scored to raise his average to a team-leading .324.

"Today we were finally ‘Sunday tough’," Ventimilia said. "That was the first time we took the lead first in the series, so it was a different mentality throughout the game that definitely helped."

Hawaii is 13-4 in its last 17 games and closed out a four-game series with a win for the first time all year.

UH’s 14-7 record matches its best 21-game start to the season since 2007.

"To say we’d be 14-7 with the caliber of competition after this first homestand, I think we’re pleased with that," Trapasso said. "There’s no question we can get better, and I look at that as encouraging because when we get better and we start swinging the bats a little more with runners in scoring position, it bodes well if we keep pitching and playing defense the way we have."

Hawaii leaves today for the Pacific Northwest, beginning with a single game at Portland on Tuesday.

The Pilots have won seven of eight and are off to their second-best start in school history at 13-3.

From there, UH will head to Gonzaga to play a four-game series beginning Thursday against the Zags (12-6), who received 12 votes in last week’s ESPN/USA Today Top 25 poll.

"We’re entering a phase in the season where it’s almost like Opening Day again," Trapasso said. "As much as we love playing at home, I think 21 games to start the season maybe puts you in your comfort zone a little too much.

"We need to get out of our comfort zone and we’ll tell our guys, the only difference these next five games from the previous 21 is we’ll wear a pair of sleeves and bat first."

Early weather reports forecast snow to fall in Spokane, Wash., both Tuesday and Wednesday, but clear out before the start of the series on Thursday. Temperatures could fall into the high 20s.