Halfway through the Big West season, Hawaii is still in reach of co-leaders Cal Poly and Cal State Fullerton.

That’s about the only positive to take away from a disappointing Sunday in Northridge, Calif.

The Rainbow Warriors needed a quality start from Alex Hatch, who ended up issuing six of the nine walks Hawaii allowed in a 9-3 loss to Cal State Northridge at Matador Field.

Yusuke Akitoshi went 3-for-5 with four RBIs and Hatch (3-5) managed to go only five innings in the loss for Hawaii (18-19, 7-5), which played more than half of the game without its head coach.

Mike Trapasso was tossed in the fourth inning arguing with plate umpire Gary Gilman. Hatch, who walked four batters in the second inning alone, gave up a two-out double to Nolan Flashman in the fourth inning.

Trapasso was then ejected and Akitoshi followed with a single to make it 3-0.

Assistant coach Rusty McNamara was also involved in a heated discussion with Gilman between innings later in the game.

“What I saw today I’ve never seen in 28 years of coaching Division I baseball,” Trapasso said. “That’s all I’ll say about it.”

The Rainbow Warriors are alone in third place but trail the Mustangs and Titans by 11⁄2 games after Cal Poly finished off a sweep of No. 12 UC Santa Barbara on Sunday.

CSUN (24-14, 3-9) won its first BWC series with 12 hits against four different UH pitchers.

Once Hatch could only go five innings, Hawaii had to use its down-staff relievers with Cody Culp, Matt Valencia and Lawrence Chew only available for an inning each at the most.

Josh Pigg, Isaac Friesen and Casey Ryan, who hadn’t pitched since March 18, combined to give up six runs in three innings.

Marcus Doi cut the CSUN lead to one with a two-run single in the top of the sixth.

The Matadors strung together three hits and a walk with two outs off of Pigg to increase their lead back to three.

Friesen walked the leadoff batter in the seventh inning and hit two guys. Ryan came in and gave up a wild pitch and then Akitoshi hit a double to center past a drawn-in infield for his eighth hit of the series.

Branden Berry, a transfer from Washington, crushed a homer to lead off the eighth and Dylan Alexander scored on a sacrifice fly after drawing a walk.

“The whole thing was a circus,” Trapasso said. “Tip your hat to Northridge. They kicked out butts and we need to be better.”

Jacob Sheldon-Collins went 2-for-4 with a double and a run and Ethan Lopez doubled and scored in the seventh inning.

Hawaii finished with nine hits.

Andrew Weston (6-3) earned the win giving up two runs on three hits in 51⁄3 innings. CSUN used five different relievers to finish off the win.

Hatch allowed three runs on five hits with five strikeouts.

UH will play a nonconference game against Loyola Marymount today at 3 p.m. Hawaii time.

The ’Bows will finish their two-week road trip with three games against the Gauchos (25-10-1, 5-4) starting Friday. UCSB is currently ranked as high as 12th in one of the major national polls but will surely drop after losing three times to the Mustangs, who took two of three at Hawaii last weekend.

BIG WEST BASEBALL

*—overall record includes tie

Sunday

Cal Poly 4, UC Santa Barbara 3

UC Irvine 11, UC Davis 1

CSUN 9, Hawaii 3

Long Beach State 10, UC Riverside 7

**UNLV 2, Cal State Fullerton 0

**—nonconference

Today

**Hawaii at Loyola Marymount, 3 p.m. HST

**UNLV at UC Irvine

**—nonconference

Tuesday

**UC Santa Barbara at Saint Mary’s

**UC Davis at Nevada

**Cal Poly at California

**UC Irvine at USC

**San Diego at UC Riverside

**San Diego State at Long Beach State

**UCLA at Cal State Fullerton

**—nonconference

CS NORTHRIDGE 9, HAWAII 3

DP—CSUN 1. LOB—Hawaii 10, CSUN 13. 2B—Sheldon-Collins, Lopez, Akitoshi, Flashman. HR—Berry. HBP—Sheldon-Collins, Smith, Bumstead, Schuman, Flashman. SF—Weeks, Flashman. SB—Berry. CS—Bumstead, Orona.

Viola pitched to 1 batter in the 7th.

WP—Ryan. HBP—by Weston (Sheldon-Collins), by Hatch (Smith), by Friesen (Schuman), by Friesen (Flashman), by Ryan (Bumstead).

Umpires—(Plate): Gary Gilman. (First): Anthony Norris. (Third): Johnny Pineda. T—3:21. A—412.