Connor Little spent an entire year rehabbing an ankle injury, pushing himself to come back for this very moment.

"When I was out and trying to find things that would help motivate me to get me back out here, coming out and hopefully being the Friday night guy for our team in the Big West to try to get that first ‘W’ was it," Little said. "It’s especially huge now with our record that we need to start it off hot."

The fifth-year senior will toss Hawaii’s first pitch in a new conference as the Rainbows open their inaugural season of Big West play hosting UC Santa Barbara tonight at Les Murakami Stadium.

The Gauchos (12-10) and Rainbows (5-16) will play four games with the first three counting toward the league standings.

Hawaii has won four of five coming in, while UCSB has lost three of four.

"Going into league play, everything gets more intense because it’s conference, but in terms of competition, I don’t think it’s going to be any different in terms of what we’ve seen," junior Conner George said.

George is coming off a hot series against Wichita State, driving in eight runs and playing his way into an everyday starting spot in the outfield.

Hawaii showed some offensive firepower against the Shockers, scoring 22 runs and raising its batting average 14 points to .232.

George had nearly half of the team’s RBIs playing in the outfield alongside sophomore Kaeo Aliviado, who hit .462 (6-for-13) in the series.

Six of Hawaii’s seven players who started all four games hit better than .300.

"We need to carry the same approach into the conference," senior third baseman Pi‘ikea Kitamura said. "I think it was more only swinging at strikes and getting ahead in counts and attacking and being aggressive."

The scoring output was a welcome sight, not only for the hitters, but UH’s pitching staff as well.

For the first time all year, Hawaii’s starters got a chance to pitch with early leads and made it count.

UH’s top three starters this weekend allowed four runs in 221⁄3 combined innings.

The one pitcher not among that group is sophomore left-hander Scott Squier, who gave up three runs on seven hits with two walks and two hit batters in 32⁄3 innings in Hawaii’s only loss to Wichita State.

Squier will work out of the bullpen for the first three games and only start the finale on Sunday if he hasn’t been used.

"The decision really isn’t based at all on Scott’s last start," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "It’s about his versatility first of all because he has the ability to come in and close games for us … and this series, because (Matt) Cooper threw on Saturday, to ask him to come back and pitch (out of the bullpen) on Thursday I thought was asking too much because he threw 119 pitches and that’s about the high for us on pitch count."

Lawrence Chew is the only healthy left-hander who has thrown out of the bullpen for UH, but he has struggled in his second season.

After going 2-3 with a 2.40 ERA and a .214 batting average against as a freshman, Chew has given up 13 runs in 10 innings this year.

The Gauchos have improved their pitching staff under Andrew Checketts, who won a school-record 28 games as a first-year coach last season.

Checketts was the pitching coach at Oregon before getting hired at UCSB. The Gauchos have given up three runs or fewer in 11 of their 22 games.