Jordan Stephens sensed Hawaii’s frustration mounting.

The Rice sophomore took full advantage, tossing his first complete game and striking out a career-high 10 to lead the 13th-ranked Owls to a 3-1 victory over the Rainbows on Saturday afternoon at Les Murakami Stadium.

Hawaii was held to five hits in front of a crowd of a 1,392 — the smallest of the season — and fell to 0-6 for the first time in its 42-year history of NCAA baseball.

"Based on what I watched yesterday, I just kind of tried to do the same," said Stephens, who threw 111 pitches. "If you worked ahead in the count, you could tell they dropped their confidence."

On the heels of Friday’s 2-0 loss in 17 innings, the Rainbows again struggled mightily with the bat.

Adam Hurley went 3-for-3 and ended Hawaii’s scoreless innings streak at 26 with a single off the glove of Leon Byrd in center to score Conner George from first.

Outside of that, it was another anemic outing by the Rainbows, who are hitting .186 (18-for-86) against the Owls and .225 overall this season.

"The disappointing thing is you can’t blow two really good pitching performances like we’ve had," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "Today I was disappointed in the lack of toughness because we got in our heads a little bit and you could see our guys pressing and trying to do too much.

"They were embarrassed (Friday) night by that offensive performance."

UH has yet to get a hit in 21 at-bats with runners in scoring position against the Owls (4-2).

The Rainbows didn’t get a runner safely to second base until George scored on Hurley’s third hit of the game.

Trevor Podratz followed with a single, but Kaeo Aliviado flied to left in the first of seven straight outs recorded by Stephens to end the game.

"It’s been a rough series so far," UH second baseman Andre Real said. "Our pitchers are doing an excellent job and it’s been a battle at the plate for both teams."

Senior Connor Little kept UH in the game, matching zeros with Stephens over the first five innings.

Rice cashed in on a leadoff double in the sixth by Ford Stainback, who scored on a sacrifice fly by Christian Stringer.

After UH answered with a run in the seventh, the Owls scored two more in the eighth for the final margin.

Shane Hoelscher led off with a ball to the gap in right-center that was fielded on the run by Aliviado. The relay throw from Real to Austin Wobrock at second looked to be in time, but the umpire ruled Hoelscher safe.

Trapasso came out to argue the call and Wobrock said after the game he had no doubt he got the tag down in time.

"It was a pretty important call that the umpire made, but it happens," Wobrock said. "I know I got him."

After a bunt moved the runner to third, reliever Lawrence Chew replaced Little and got Keenan Cook to hit a grounder to third.

Pi‘ikea Kitamura took a couple of steps to his left, but fielded it quickly and turned to throw home to try to get the runner out. But the ball sailed to the backstop, allowing Hoelscher to score.

Connor Teykl then delivered a two-out bloop single off Jon Flinn to push the Rice lead to 3-1.

"You have to go home on that, you don’t really have a choice," Trapasso said. "Everything is set up to go there and Pi‘ikea will make that play nine out of 10 times."

Little tied a career high with 71⁄3 innings and allowed eight hits and two runs to drop to 0-2 this season despite two quality outings.

"I’m getting better and that’s my goal — to get better every week," Little said. "We need to come out (today) and fight."