On Valentine’s night, the Hawaii baseball team suffered a straight-to-the-heart loss.
North Dakota State scored a run in each of the final three innings for Friday night’s 3-1 victory before 1,357 at Les Murakami Stadium.
The Bison, who were playing their first game of the season, had come in from the cold. It was minus-22 degrees when they departed Fargo, N.D., on Thursday morning. They had to wait until the temperature warmed to minus-20 before the de-icing procedure could begin on their airplane.
The Bison were frigid offensively through the first six innings against UH’s Logan Pouelsen, who was making his second start in as many Fridays. In the first six frames, Pouelsen allowed two hits, struck out eight and walked zip. He had only one three-ball count.
>> PHOTOS: Hawaii vs. North Dakota
With the ’Bows leading 1-0, Bison shortstop Bennett Hostetler hit an opposite-field double to the wall in right field to open the seventh.
Hostetler went to third on Tucker Rohde’s grounder to short — and UH head coach Mike Trapasso went to the bullpen, summoning left-hander Jeremy Wu-Yelland.
Wu-Yelland pitched three scoreless innings against Hilo a week ago. He appeared to be as sharp on Friday, inducing Charley Hesse to ground out to second while Hostetler retreated to third. But then Wu-Yelland’s inside pitch to Jack Simonson went past catcher Dallas Duarte to the backstop as Hostetler raced home with the tying run.
“No mixed signals,” Duarte said of the wild pitch. “It got away from me.”
In the NDSU eighth, Jake Malec drew a one-out walk against Wu-Yelland. One out later, Malec stole second. Peter Brookshaw then hit a grounder that eluded the diving reach of second baseman Matt Campos. Malec outraced the throw to the plate from right fielder Tyler Best for the go-ahead run.
“I made some good pitches and I made some not-so-good pitches,” said Wu-Yelland (1-1). “They took advantage of my mistakes. Sometimes it doesn’t go your way. I have to do better, and I will.
“You can’t hang your head on something like that. They just beat me.”
The Bison added an insurance run in the ninth on after Hesse doubled, went to third on Tai Atkins’ wild pitch, and scored on Simonson’s sacrifice fly.
“You’re not going to win a lot of games 1-0,” Trapasso said. “Tonight, we had a chance to do that. We just couldn’t close it out. It was a tall order. It was asking a lot of the pitchers to throw a shutout. But, again, we were three innings away from doing that.
“I thought JY (Wu-Yelland) coming in and getting a ground ball and then getting two strikes, I thought we were going to put up a zero there in the seventh. We didn’t. They tied it, and the momentum shifted their way.”
The ’Bows placed runners in scoring position in the first two innings, but did not score the game’s first run until the third.
Scotty Scott pulled a drive into the right-field corner to open the bottom of the third. Kole Kater then dropped a bunt down the third-base line. Hesse hesitated, picked up the ball, but threw too late to get Kater at first. Scott raced to third on the play. Scott then scooted home on Dustin Demeter’s sacrifice fly to left, his sixth RBI in three games.
