It was ugly, but to Mike Trapasso, looks aren’t everything.

"That was a character win for us," the Hawaii baseball coach said.

Hawaii spotted Albany six runs before even coming to bat, yet found a way to battle back for a 9-7 win on Saturday at Les Murakami Stadium.

"That was a big game for us early in the season," Trapasso added. "To get down so much early and no panic, understand we shot ourselves in the foot, know we had the whole game to come back and we chipped away."

Senior Kalei Hanawahine stepped into the leadoff spot for freshman Marcus Doi and went 2-for-4 with two doubles and scored three runs. Hawaii (3-4) is a win away from clinching its first four-game sweep since beating Sacramento State four straight to open the 2011 WAC season.

"To get back to .500 would be a big thing going into Pepperdine," said sophomore Juliene Jones, who was 2-for-4 and scored two runs.

Hawaii scored nine runs for the second straight game despite missing Doi, the team’s leading hitter at .417.

The freshman outfielder left Friday night’s game in the seventh inning with a mild groin injury and is day-to-day.

Hanawahine entered the game hitting .136 (3-for-22). With his team trailing 6-0, he led off the bottom of the first with a double and scored on a two-out single by Marc Flores.

"I just tried to set the tone right out of the gate and show that we weren’t going to lie down easily," Hanawahine said. "It’s frustrating when you square some balls up and don’t find any holes, but I’ve tried to keep swinging it and keep hitting line drives up the middle."

Hanawahine added an RBI double in the fourth and scored the tying run in the seventh on a groundout after stealing third.

He added a key insurance run in the eighth, scoring on a single by Jordan Richartz to push the lead to 9-7.

That run allowed Trapasso to keep his rotation set heading into Sunday’s 1:05 p.m. finale.

Senior Scott Kuzminsky (1-0, 9.00 ERA) was warming up in the bullpen to pitch the ninth, but once Hanawahine increased the lead to two, Trapasso decided to stick with freshman Gordon Cardenas, who worked a perfect ninth.

Kuzminsky will start Sunday.

"I told (Kuzminsky) that if we spent the whole game battling back and were able to take the lead to mentally prepare himself to pitch the ninth," Trapasso said. "There’s no question scoring that insurance run let (Cardenas) relax and that ninth inning he was able to pound the zone and got ahead of every hitter."

Junior Scott Squier (1-0) pulled out the win despite an ugly first inning.

Albany scored six runs on four hits, three errors and a hit batter.

Cory Kingston reached base twice on catcher’s interference calls in the same inning and Albany strung together four hits in five at-bats off Squier, who struggled all game.

Despite the wildness, Squier pitched seven innings, throwing 121 pitches. Albany had runners on first and third in the seventh when Squier got Alex Lushkevich to line into an inning-ending double play.

"He was able to settle the game and get zeroes, but he wasn’t good today," Trapasso said. "He was able to gut his way through the game and that’s basically the only way I can describe it because he wasn’t good. But after that first inning we played really good defense behind him."

Senior Adam Hurley started in left in place of Doi and was 2-for-3 with two runs scored. Austin Wobrock reached base three times and keyed Hawaii’s three-run fourth inning with an RBI triple.

Kaeo Aliviado walked twice and scored a run but finished 0-for-3 to end his six-game hitting streak.

E—Peltz, Gallup, Podratz 2, Brewster. DP—Albany 1, Hawaii 2. LOB—Albany 7, Hawaii 9. 2B—Hanawahine 2; Baldwin. 3B—Wobrock. HBP—Nethaway, Harasta, Peltz, Hanawahine, Richartz, Hurley. SH—Kingston, Harasta, Jones, Podratz, Brewster. SF—Peltz. SB—Hincy, Peltz, Hanawahine. CS—Flores, Podratz. Reached on CI—Kingston 2.

WP—Gallup, Stinar 5, Squier. HBP—by Squier (Nethaway), by Squier (Harasta), by Gallup Richartz), by Squier (Peltz), by Romero (Hanawahine).
Umpires—(Plate): Bradley Hungerford. (First): John Bullock. (Third): Ruben Chavira. T—4:15. A—1,028.