Alex Luna made sure there was no letdown in the Alabama-Birmingham dugout on Friday night.

The UAB junior kept Hawaii’s hitters guessing, giving up just five hits in 7 2/3 innings as he combined with reliever Turner Lee to shut out Hawaii 5-0 in front of a Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 2,067.

The Blazers (17-6) evened the series at a game apiece just 24 hours after allowing three runs in the bottom of the ninth in a 5-4 loss.

Luna didn’t walk a batter and struck out six to lower his season ERA to an even 1.00 in 36 innings.

"I’m getting pretty old but I always thought momentum in baseball is basically who the next pitcher is," Blazers coach Brian Shoop said. "(Luna) has really been on his game almost every outing. When you throw a game with no walks, it’s hard to produce offense."

Hawaii (10-12) didn’t hit a ball to the outfield until Marc Flores’ two-out single to right in the bottom of the fourth.

Luna recorded 11 of his 23 outs on the ground and has struck out 30 with only two walks this season.

"There were high emotions still trying to get back even and I was trying to pound the strike zone," said the 6-foot-5 righty. "I’d say you can never complain when you put up eight zeros. It was really good."

He did more than enough to better Hawaii starter Scott Squier, who failed to pitch at least seven innings for the first time this year.

Squier (2-1) allowed one earned run in six innings but couldn’t go further after UAB worked his pitch count up to 108.

He tied a career high with nine strikeouts but gave up two walks, five hits and threw three wild pitches.

"He couldn’t throw really anything other than his fastball and his fastball was 50-50 tonight," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "The story of the game was (Luna) though. We were off balance all night long."

The game stayed scoreless until the fifth inning when the Blazers got four straight batters to reach base with two outs.

Squier, who had struck out six through four innings, was a pitch away from ending the inning when Matt Morse poked a base hit to right field.

Adam Smith followed with a walk and Chase David put the Blazers on the board with a base hit to right to score Morse.

UAB added two more runs on a tough grounder to third that caught sophomore Juliene Jones in between hops. Jones stepped forward before trying to move back and ultimately let the ball get past him into left field, making it 3-0 UAB.

"I should have just tried to get in front of it and put my body in front of it," Jones said. "It caught me in the middle."

UAB tacked on two more runs off UH reliever Gordon Cardenas, who gave up six hits in two innings.

He stayed in the game with two outs in the eighth after catcher Mitch Williams hit a ball up the middle that hit off Cardenas’ body and caught him in the face before bouncing away.

Morse followed with his third hit and Smith singled to score Williams to make it 5-0, which was more than enough run support for Luna and Lee, who combined to hand Hawaii its first shutout loss of the season.

"It was only a 5-0 game but it seemed like 15-0 with the way Luna was pitching," Trapasso said. "He was the best we’ve seen this year."

Hawaii will turn to left-hander Jarrett Arakawa (1-0, 2.35 ERA), who is coming off his best performance of the season.

Arakawa allowed two runs in seven innings last Sunday against Nevada, throwing just 88 pitches.

"As conference comes, we need seven innings out of our starters because that gives us enough bullpen depth," Trapasso said. "(Arakawa) needs to give us a good start."

First pitch on Saturday night is 6:35.

E—Vincent; Jones. DP—Hawaii 1. LOB—UAB 9; Hawaii 6. 2B—Vincent. HBP—Gum. SH—Prinzing; Smith. SB—Davis; Richartz.