At times, it tempted you to dream big.

A 6-1 start to open Big West play and a series win on the road against Cal State Fullerton showed how the 2016 Hawaii baseball team was capable of playing.

Other times, these same Rainbow Warriors left you scratching your head.

A season-opening loss to Division II Hawaii-Hilo, a game against New Mexico in which UH walked 17 batters and a game against Michigan that saw Hawaii strike out 20 times at the plate stand out the most.

In the end, it was the 53rd and final game of the season that provided the best example of what ultimately led UH to a fourth consecutive 30-loss season.

Hawaii left 13 runners on base, including seven over the final four innings, to drop a winnable game against Arizona, which was one of six teams Hawaii played this year that advanced to a regional.

The final two runs were scored after back-to-back walks to lead off the ninth. JJ Matijevic’s two-run double off Matt Valencia was just the sixth hit Valencia gave up in 26 innings all season. The two earned runs? They were just the second and third surrendered by Valencia, who still finished with the best single-season ERA of pitchers with at least 20 innings in school history.

He gave up an earned run in only two of his 21 appearances. Both times he ended up with the loss.

“It was a microcosm of our season,” Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said after the game.

Indeed it was.

The gap between a winning season and another 30-loss season is not very big.

Hawaii, which finished 23-30 overall and 12-12 in the Big West, lost 10 games by one run and finished five games out of first place in conference. All three teams that finished with a better record in BWC play than Hawaii ended up advancing to NCAA regionals.

Three of Hawaii’s last five losses in conference and four of the last eight overall were in games that were tied in the ninth inning.

Hawaii was 6-1 and in first place in the BWC when it lost a 5-4 game to Cal Poly at home. The game was tied in the eighth inning when UH gave up a two-out walk, hit a batter, then allowed the go-ahead single.

Hawaii left two runners on base in the bottom of the eighth inning and put the tying run on first to lead off the ninth.

After a bunt came a pop out, intentional walk and a groundout.

Ballgame.

So many times it ended up that way. Despite going to battle every weekend with only six reliable pitchers on staff, UH clawed its way into most of its games.

A .265 team batting average marked a significant improvement from recent years, but UH still finished with 32 fewer runs than the next-lowest team (UC Riverside, 248).

It was a team that failed to record 200 RBIs in 53 games and its slugging percentage of .338 was lower than Jacob Sheldon-Collins’ team-leading .349 batting average.

Hawaii’s six home runs were tied for dead last in Division I.

Trapasso is one of two head coaches the Hawaii baseball program has had over the past 45 years. He just wrapped up his 15th season and is in danger of falling below .500 (426-422) during that time.

With one year left on his current contract, he’s expected to return for a 16th year, but like the teams still playing this weekend in a regional, it will be win-or-go-home time. He’ll have seven of nine returning starters on offense back with him but will retool his entire pitching staff for a third straight season.

This job will be his toughest one yet. There doesn’t seem to be a Kyle Von Ruden or an Alex Hatch or a Lawrence Chew/Cody Culp/Matt Valencia type on the current roster.

Only Brendan Hornung threw at least 19 innings this season among the pitchers returning.

The baseball program has done all of the right things off the field and more than 100,000 tickets were sold this season, even though it was the first time since 2005 not a single game was sold out.

Like many of those games, the UH baseball program is knotted up in a tie of its own right now and it’s the bottom of the ninth inning.

Will 2017 provide the game-winning hit or will there be a much different baseball program at UH moving forward?

It’s all in play come next season.

2016 UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII BASEBALL STATISTICS