When asked if Hawaii made a statement by sweeping New Mexico State, reliever David Longville had to double-check a couple of facts first.

"What were we, fourth coming in and now we’re second?" Longville said.

When told Hawaii took over sole possession of first place in the Western Athletic Conference following Saturday night’s 1-0 win over the Aggies, Longville felt a lot more confident in his answer.

"Yeah? OK," he went on. "Then I’d say we made a statement."

The Rainbows held an Aggies team averaging more than nine runs a game to only four over 25 innings, culminating in a shutout on Saturday in front of a sold-out Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 3,315.

Four pitchers combined on a seven-hitter, with the bullpen retiring all 14 batters it faced.

Longville (2-2) inherited a bases-loaded jam with one out in the fifth and pitched his way out of that before eventually retiring eight in a row to earn the win.

Lawrence Chew set down the next five Aggies hitters and Brent Harrison polished off UH’s seventh win in 10 games to earn his eighth save.

"Scott (Squier) did a good job, too, so it was a good pitching performance," said Chew, one of only two UH left-handed relievers. "I don’t know (how we did it), but we’ve been pitching great all year and came in focused against New Mexico State, which has a great offense."

Hawaii (28-18, 8-4) put itself in position to earn one of two first-round byes in the WAC tournament in three weeks by vaulting ahead of four other teams with a sweep of the Aggies (30-17, 7-5).

UH is a full game up on three different teams, including both Sacramento State and Nevada, which the Rainbows will play over the next two weeks.

Head coach Mike Trapasso was pleased with UH’s performance on the mound, but cautioned against getting too overjoyed at one good weekend.

"As far as statement series or anything like that, not even close because we still have too many games to go," Trapasso said. "But as far as taking a step back and looking at our pitchers, you can feel really good about what they did against the No. 1 offense in the country."

Garrett Champion came up with the one big hit of the night, doubling home Zack Swasey from first with two outs in the fifth.

Champion, who had two of UH’s five hits, caught all three games in the series and was 3-for-8 with two walks and a run scored.

"(Our pitchers) have been awesome all year and tonight and this weekend they proved it again," Champion said. "We were tied for fourth place coming into this weekend and we knew we needed to get it done this weekend."

The Aggies left eight runners on over the first five innings, including the bases loaded in the fifth.

Squier gave up seven hits over the first four innings, but the Aggies were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

The freshman left-hander got wild in the fifth, hitting a batter and walking two others to load the bases with only one out.

Longville replaced Squier and fell behind 3-0 to Zach Voight before inducing a popout to short and a flyout to center to keep the game scoreless.

Squier allowed seven hits and two walks in 41⁄3 innings with four strikeouts and didn’t factor in the decision.

"Poor Scott, it’s the same situation as we had against Louisiana Tech, where he’s actually pitching pretty well but we’re not scoring and we just can’t afford to give up any runs," Trapasso said. "Coming in I was hoping he could get us twice through the lineup being a two-pitch guy and I really thought he was pitching well, but you can’t walk the bases loaded and expect to stay in the game."