With its pitching staff severely depleted, Hawaii has needed every starter to go deep in ballgames.
On Friday night, Long Beach State had a guy go the distance for the first time all year.
Junior right-hander Shane Carle pitched a complete game for the Dirtbags, striking out seven in LBSU’s 6-2 win over Hawaii at Blair Field in Long Beach, Calif.
Zach Miller had two hits and scored twice, and Colton Vaughn put the game out of reach with a two-run single in the seventh to lead Long Beach State (23-24, 10-9 Big West).
Stephen Ventimilia went 2-for-3 with a double and scored both Hawaii runs, and Conner George ended an 0-for-21 skid with an RBI single in the first inning for the Rainbows (11-32, 6-13), who dropped a season-worst 21 games under .500.
"We got the leadoff guy on a couple of times there early, but could only do anything with it in the first inning," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "We were aggressive early in counts, but weren’t able to drive any balls."
Carle (3-8) allowed seven hits and two walks and ended the game striking out Austin Wobrock looking.
Wobrock was one of three UH starters to go hitless.
Marc Flores singled in the third inning to extend his hitting streak to six games as UH collected five hits through the first three innings.
UH left six men on base in the first three innings as Kalei Hanawahine flied out with men on first and second in the first, and struck out in the third with runners on the corners.
Hanawahine entered the game leading UH with a .291 average.
Senior Connor Little (1-6) kept UH in front 1-0 until the Dirtbags scored two runs in the fifth.
Zack Belanger and Zach Miller singled to start the inning and scored on consecutive RBI groundouts.
Zack Rivera added a two-out RBI double in the sixth to make it 3-1, and LBSU scored three more times in the seventh, taking advantage of an error by catcher Trevor Podratz.
Jeff McNeil followed the error with an RBI double, and Vaughn smacked a two-run single to center to make it 6-1.
Little finished the seventh inning before exiting the game, allowing eight hits and six runs — five earned — with one walk and five strikeouts.
"He was able to have success early because of his change-up, but his fastball was up and they started to catch up to it," Trapasso said.
"(Long Beach State) was ultra aggressive early in counts and hit some pretty good pitches."
Max Duval worked a perfect eighth inning.
With its third straight loss, Hawaii fell to 2-3 on its current road trip and is now 1-20 in games when it scores two runs or less.
Senior Corey MacDonald (5-5) will try to push his record over .500 as he starts Game 2 of the series for the Rainbows today at 11 a.m. Hawaii time.