‘Bows ready for some heavy lifting

In order to get his batting numbers up, Marc Flores decided to slim down. The Hawaii senior, who made 40 of his 45 starts at first base last year, is taking a new look to his new position in left field.

Flores said he has shed 45 pounds since returning to school in the fall after a summer in Minnesota, where he played for the Willmar Stingers in the Northwest League.

He cooks his own dinner every night, refuses to eat carbohydrates after 3 p.m. and has taken bread out of his diet completely, resulting in a slimmed-down 6-foot-5 power hitter, who is all the way down to 205 pounds.

"When I came back from the Northwoods League, I weighed 250 and I had a blood pressure 180 over 100 and (the doctors) almost didn’t pass me to play," he said. "I had to change my whole way of eating and I’ve lost 45 pounds the healthy way."

The move has been especially beneficial for a season in which Flores is moving to left field, a position more physically demanding than first base. It’s also a gamble as despite his heavier weight, he had a great summer, hitting .352 with 13 homers and 64 RBIs for the Stingers.

"That’s what I was worried about at first too, but when I started hitting again, even at this weight, I’m still putting the ball over the double fences," he said.

Flores was the only UH player to hit multiple home runs last year and his move to left field adds a sizeable amount of pop to the outfield group as a whole.

Center fielder Kaeo Aliviado and right fielder Kalei Hanawahine have combined for only one home run at UH (Aliviado’s freshman season), but along with Flores they are three of the top four returnees from last season in batting average.

Hanawahine led UH with a .286 average despite getting off to a slow start. He missed all of the 2012 season after transferring from San Diego, and it wasn’t until the start of conference play that he began to find his swing.

In 22 Big West games, Hanawahine hit .333 (21-for-63) with four doubles, two triples and 15 runs scored.

"I started off in the starting lineup and things didn’t quite go my way, but I think I learned from it," Hanawahine said. "I grew as a player watching from the side, and when I got another opportunity I took advantage of it."

All three starting outfielders played in at least 40 games last season and are an experienced group looking to atone for last season’s struggles.

"We’re all pushing each other, and as you can see before practice, there’s five to 10 guys in the cage working right now," Hanawahine said. "We all want to do well this year."

Both Hanawahine, who went to Kamehameha, and Aliviado, who graduated from Saint Louis, take extra pride in representing the hometown school as local boys.

"He was a freshman when I had to redshirt after transferring and we’ve spent a lot of time with each other," Hanawahine said. "We’re good friends, we share that local connection and want to do well for the home team."

Barring injury, the three should get most of the reps in the outfield this year. With Flores’ move to left field, Hanawahine switched over to right, leaving senior Conner George as the odd man out.

George, who started 42 games last season, begins the year as a backup to Hanawahine, with freshman Matt Miller backing up Flores in left and senior Adam Hurley playing behind Aliviado in center.

Flores and Aliviado played the entire alumni game, with George replacing Hanawahine in the sixth inning.

"We left them out there because those are the guys that are going to get at-bats for us this season and we wanted them to get as many as they could against live pitching," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said.

Aliviado started at least one game in all three outfield spots last season, while Hanawahine started at least 10 games in both left and center, giving UH plenty of flexibility in case it needs to make a change.