The University of Hawaii baseball team is adding two left-handed complements.
Brennen Hancock of Bellevue (Wash) Community College and Nathan Flores of Santa Ana (Calif.) College have signed pledges to join the Rainbow Warriors.
Hancock can play first base and both corner-outfield positions. Flores doubles as pitcher and outfielder.
“They’re both athletic,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said.
Hancock is 6 feet 3 and 215 pounds. This past season, Hancock hit .293 with seven home runs and was perfect on 11 steal attempts. He hit .329 in 24 Northwest Athletic Conference games. The NWAC requires wooden bats for its games.
“When you put up good numbers offensively, swinging the wood bat in cold weather, that’s impressive,” Trapasso said.
Trapasso said it is too early to determine where Hancock will be used. “We’re excited about Brennen,” Trapasso said. “It’s always a big jump for anybody to go from junior college to Division I. A lot of our guys from Bellevue have done that right away. We’ll just have to see on that.”
Bellevue has provided several players to UH the past 12 years, most recently outfielder Dylan Vchulek and pitchers Dominic DeMiero and Kash Koltermann.
“Obviously, it’s a program we’ve had great success with,” Trapasso said. “They’re extremely well coached. They’re good kids. They all come in over the years and have been successful for us.”
Flores, who is 5-11 and 175 pounds, will be used initially as a pitcher.
“He’s actually a little bit raw, but he’s left-handed with good stuff,” Trapasso said, noting Flores’ fastball regularly clocks in the high 80s “with plus movement. I’m excited about him. He’s a tremendous kid, a tremendous young man, and he’s athletic. He’s an athletic pitcher.”
Overall, Flores was 2-3 with a 3.51 earned-run average. But in league games, he was 2-1 with a 2.40 ERA.
“We’ll give him the opportunity in the fall to swing the bat,” Trapasso said. “We’ll see how he does at that end.”
Flores hit .278 with an on-base percentage of .367 and a slugging percentage of .424 last season. He hit .291 in league games.