Rainbow Wahine keep trying for elusive 20th win of the season

That 19 in the win column is probably getting pretty old for the University of Hawaii softball team.

The Rainbow Wahine have been stuck on that total for close to three weeks while they’ve lost ground in the Big West standings. Their next opportunity to break out of a seven-game skid and break through the 20-win barrier comes Saturday when UH opens a conference series at UC Santa Barbara.

The Rainbow Wahine (19-22, 4-8 BWC) and Gauchos (28-17, 8-4) open the three-game series with a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 9 a.m. Hawaii time at UCSB’s Campus Diamond. They’ll play a single game on Sunday, also at 9 a.m.

Since opening Big West play with a sweep at UC Riverside, UH dropped a home series against Cal State Fullerton and slipped into a tie for sixth place in the conference standings after being swept by Long Beach State and Cal Poly the past two weekends.

The Wahine held leads in the first two games of last week’s Cal Poly series, but the Mustangs’ knack for extending innings and a few defensive lapses prolonged UH’s drought. Cal Poly scored 12 of its 17 runs in the series with two outs and held off UHrallies in the late innings as the Wahine fell six games behind league leader Long Beach State with nine games to play.

"We’re trying to resolve why we’re playing not to lose rather than playing to win," UH coach Bob Coolen said.

"Hopefully we can come out of our tentativeness and play with a little bit more aggression and not wait until the end to make a game exciting for everyone."

UH will try to reverse its slide against a UC Santa Barbara team on the ascent over the past month.

The Gauchos stumbled to a 1-3 start in the Big West but have reeled off seven wins in their past eight games and enter the weekend alone in second place, two games behind LBSU. Cal Poly and Cal State Fullerton are another game back in the race for the conference title.

For their part, the Wahine are focused on getting back on track rather than tracking the movement of the teams above them.

"It’s a matter of playing softball that we’re capable of playing," Coolen said.

UHclean-up hitter Leisha Liilii continues to power the Wahineoffense and raised her batting average to .393 in last week’s series. She’s driven in a team-high 33 runs and remains second in the Big West with 12 home runs. Inconference games, she’s hitting .438 with four homers and 13 RBIs and owns an .875 slugging percentage.

UH pitchers Loie Kesterson (10-11, 4.07 earned-run average) and Heather Morales (9-8, 5.23) will face aUCSB lineup led by freshman Kristen Clark. The Gauchos’ leadoff hitter sets the pace for the UCSB offense with a .416 batting average and has 25 stolen bases in 30 attempts.

Shelby Wisdom is the Gauchos’ RBI leader with 26 and tops UCSB’s pitching rotation. Wisdom (16-12, 3.14) has thrown 73 2/3 innings out of UCSB’s 79 innings in league play and is 8-3 in that span. She won a nine-inning duel with UHace Kaia Parnaby in the first game of last season’s series in Honolulu before UH bounced back with a doubleheader sweep on senior day.