There’s an excitement building within the Hawaii baseball program about its potential for next year and beyond.

A core group of young, talented players who all return next season will give Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso a lot to look forward to in 2017.

At the same time, the 2016 season wouldn’t have ended the way it has without a solid group of 10 seniors who played a large role in keeping Hawaii in the top half of the Big West Conference.

Two of Hawaii’s top three hitters and 68 percent of its innings pitched will bid aloha on Sunday when the Rainbow Warriors (23-27) try to win a series against a nationally-ranked opponent for the second consecutive week.

Cal State Fullerton, which is 20th in the latest Collegiate Baseball poll, dropped nearly 20 spots in the RPI after losing two of three to the Rainbow Warriors at home last weekend.

Arizona (35-20), ranked four spots behind the Titans at No. 24 this week, will bring the second-best RPI among West Coast schools behind UC Santa Barbara into the final series of the year at Les Murakami Stadium.

“It’s going to be bittersweet,” said senior right-hander Kyle Von Ruden, who will go for his eighth win Friday night. “It’s a really unique place to be able to play ball out here. We’re like the professional team with huge crowds and lots of support and it’s been so much fun.”

Von Ruden is one of many seniors who has seen a sizable jump in production from last year.

He turned a junior year in which he had a 4.47 ERA in 441⁄3 innings with a .305 batting average against into a senior season where he led the team with a 7-2 record and 3.09 ERA in 102 innings with a .249 batting average against.

“It was tough to get an opportunity last year to be one of the guys because we had some really good arms,” Von Ruden said, “but to be able to be a big part of this team my senior year I’m definitely really thankful for the opportunity.”

He recorded two of his wins with complete-game performances but most of the time needed help behind him in the bullpen.

Right-hander Cody Culp and lefties Matt Valencia and Lawrence Chew have taken on nearly the entire load out of the ’pen for UH this season and 50 games in are still going strong.

Chew has given up only four earned runs in his last 151⁄3 innings spanning 12 appearances and has been a dependable bridge guy in the sixth and seventh innings over the final month of the season.

Valencia took over for Quintin Torres-Costa as Hawaii’s dominant closing option allowing only one earned run all season in 242⁄3 innings with 28 strikeouts and four saves.

Culp is 3-1 with a 2.14 ERA and his 29 appearances rank in the top 35 in the country. He’s allowed only one earned run in his last 11 2⁄3 innings.

“That’s been our entire bullpen basically,” Trapasso said. “Those three guys have been tremendous for us and solidified the bullpen from the early part of the season.”

Hawaii’s .268 batting average as a team is 19 points higher than each of its last three years and the best mark since Kolten Wong’s junior year in 2011.

At the top of the list all year is shortstop Jacob Sheldon-Collins, who was hitting above .400 at the 40-game mark of the season. He’s dipped to .364 over the last three weeks but is still well ahead of his team-leading .293 average as a junior.

Those are pretty good numbers for a kid from Australia who began his UH career hitting ninth in the order.

“I couldn’t ask for much more,” Sheldon-Collins said. “At the start of the year if you had told me I’d be hitting .360 coming into the last week of the season I would have told you you’re a liar. This has been fantastic and we’ve got one more series to go have some fun.”

All four senior position players have played in at least 23 games with 15 starts. They all haven’t had the success they may have wanted, but it hasn’t kept fifth-year senior Alan Baldwin from being one of the biggest influences on this team behind the scenes.

“An unsung hero of this senior class is Alan Baldwin because he didn’t have the senior year he would have liked, but he was an integral part of the make-up of this club in creating the culture that we’re so proud of,” Trapasso said. “He’s a leader of this team and some of the things that aren’t seen in the record books are some of the things he’s going to leave here very proud of.”

All 10 seniors will be honored after Sunday’s season finale starting at 1:05 p.m.

10 SENIORS BID ALOHA

>> Jacob Sheldon-Collins, SS, Melbourne, Australia

>> Matt LoCoco, OF, Santa Rosa, Calif.

>> Alan Baldwin, OF, Kailua, Oahu

>> Alex Sawelson, INF, Studio City, Calif.

>> Cody Culp, RHP, Anacortes, Wash.

>> Matt Valencia, LHP, Stockton, Calif.

>> Josh Pigg, RHP, Sacramento, Calif.

>> Alex Hatch, LHP, Lynnwood, Wash.

>> Lawrence Chew, LHP, Mililani, Oahu

>> Kyle Von Ruden, RHP, Sacramento, Calif.

NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

>> Sheldon-Collins’ .364 batting average is the best single-season mark since 2011 (Kolten Wong, .378).

>> Von Ruden (102 innings pitched) needs to throw five innings against Arizona to finish with the most innings thrown in a season since 2006 (Steven Wright, 109 2/3 IP).

>> Valencia’s 0.36 ERA is the best mark by a pitcher who threw at least 20 innings in a single season in UH history (Gene Smith, 1.05, 1978).

>> Culp’s 29 appearances rank in the top 10 all-time in UH history. If he appears in two games against Arizona, he will finish tied for third in program history (Joey Vierra, 38, 1986; Jeff Ball, 35, 1989).