UC Davis zips Rainbows

It wasn’t a perfect weekend for the Hawaii baseball team.

Max Cordy made sure of that on Sunday, scattering seven hits over eight scoreless innings in UC Davis’ 4-0 victory over the Rainbow Warriors at Les Murakami Stadium.

The Aggies (19-10-1, 3-3 Big West) earned their only win of the series in front of a modest Easter crowd of 1,167, but it didn’t count toward the conference standings. Hawaii (12-20, 3-3) took care of that in the first three games, winning each one by at least four runs to get to .500.

"You don’t like losing a game whether it counts in the conference standings or not because you play to win," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "But we’re going to come away from this weekend with a good feeling. We’ll have Chayce (Ka’aua) behind the plate Friday and go to a tough place in Cal Poly and see if we can continue it."

Ka’aua had the day off after going 5-for-10 with three doubles and six runs scored against UC Davis.

Senior Steven Pollakov got the start behind the plate but lasted only two innings before Alan Baldwin came in from left field to take over the catching duties.

UC Davis hit two doubles, stole two bases and scored twice in the first inning off Hawaii starter Kyle Von Ruden.

Von Ruden (1-3) issued a two-out walk in the second inning to Brad Pluschkell, who then stole second, took third on a passed ball and scored on a ball that didn’t get 30 feet off the plate as Pollakov struggled to field it cleanly and make a play.

"We didn’t have any tempo or any energy with our pitcher or our catcher in the first two innings," Trapasso said.

Senior Andrew Jones came in for the third inning and put up six straight zeroes to give Hawaii a chance to get back in it.

UH got two-out hits in four consecutive innings but couldn’t get on the scoreboard.

The best chance to score came in the eighth inning when Jacob Sheldon-Collins and Stephen Ventimilia singled to put two on with nobody out.

Cordy struck out Baldwin and got Kaeo Aliviado to ground into one of two double plays turned by the Aggies to improve to 7-0 for the season. He struck out six with only one walk.

"He’s one of the better guys we’ve seen this year, and that’s saying something with the pitchers we’ve faced," Trapasso said. "He sat 90 to 92 (miles per hour), it was funky, and our guys couldn’t see it and couldn’t pick up the spin on the slider. He’s the best we faced (this weekend)."

Jones lowered his ERA nearly two full runs from 6.57 to 4.82 with his longest outing of the season.

He struck out four and walked one and gave up only three hits in 61⁄3 innings. Pluschkell hit a one-out single in the ninth off Jones and scored on Evan Heptig’s double off Cody Culp.

Hawaii’s bullpen finished the four-game series allowing two earned runs and eight hits in 15 innings with 14 strikeouts.

"Felt relaxed more having those three wins behind us and felt good working on my fastball command and getting ahead," Jones said. "It’s been tough because there’s a lot of pressure coming out of the bullpen and we’re getting blamed for losing some of these games, but we keep battling and grinding and working and just sticking to our routine."

Sheldon-Collins had two more hits to finish off the series batting 7-for-15 to raise his average 37 points to .263.

Stephen Ventimilia had two hits and first baseman Eric Ramirez went 2-for-4 to take over the team lead with a .291 batting average.

"I’ve been pulling off the last couple of series, so I’ve tried to stay closed this entire series," Ramirez said. "We played good at UC Irvine and had to come out here the same way and we did that."

This is the first time in three years Hawaii has been at least .500 in the Big West after two weeks. Six of its next nine conference games are at home, but up first is a quick three-game road trip at Cal Poly, which is 10-18 overall and 1-2 in the BWC after a preseason top-20 ranking in nearly every major poll.

"Baseball is a game you’re going to have some good days and you’re going to have some bad days," Ramirez said. "We can’t let it get to our head. We have to go out there and keep playing the same way every time."

UC DAVIS 4, HAWAII 0

E–Baldwin, Ramirez, Richartz, Pollakov. DP–UC Davis 2, Hawaii 1. LOB–UC Davis 7, Hawaii 7. 2B–Lipson, Lynch, Heptig, Aliviado. HBP–Bily, Henderson. SB–Lipson, Lynch, Pluschkell.

WP–Stone. HBP–by Jones (Henderson), by Culp (Bily). PB–Pollakov.
Umpires–(Plate): Scott Letendre. (First): Kevin Daugherty. (Third): Rich Padilla. T–2:39. A–2600.

BIG WEST STANDINGS

*includes one tie for overall record

Sunday
UC Davis 4, Hawaii 0

Monday
Long Beach State at San Diego State (non-conference)

Tuesday
Sacramento State at UC Davis
UC Riverside at Loyola Marymount
CS Fullerton at San Diego
Pepperdine at Cal Poly
UC Irvine at San Diego State