Hawaii baseball team ends season with another loss

The University of Hawaii baseball team’s 2021 season came to a disappointing conclusion with Sunday’s 6-2 loss to Cal Poly at Baggett Stadium in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

The Mustangs scored three runs in the fifth to break a 2-all tie en route to winning their seventh in a row and sweeping this four-game Big West series. The Mustangs finished 31-25 — their 13th 30-victory season since 2000 — and 21-19 in the Big West.

The Rainbow Warriors fell to 24-26 and 16-24.

The ’Bows opened the season 11-2 and ranked 30th nationally. A month ago, they were 15-13 in the Big West heading into a bye weekend. Since the break, they lost 11 of their final 12. The final stretch has been marred with injuries and inconsistent hitting, pitching and fielding.

“The last three weeks were a struggle for us, obviously,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “We were playing at a high level before that. … I think we ran out of gas and didn’t play well enough.”

On Sunday, the ’Bows amassed nine hits, did not commit an error and erased an early two-run deficit. After Brooks Lee doubled home Myles Emmerson and then scored on Taison Corio’s RBI single to stake the Mustangs to a 2-0 lead in the fourth, the ’Bows answered a half-inning later.

Catcher Tyler Murray belted his first home run of the season — the second of his six-year career — to close UH to 2-1. Scotty Scott drew a two-out walk, and Adam Fogel and Dustin Demeter followed with back-to-back singles to load the bases. Jacob Igawa drew a five-pitch walk to bring home Scott with the tying run.

But the ’Bows could not contain the Mustangs in a three-run bottom of the fifth. Nick DiCarlo hit a lead-off double to left and, one out later, scooted to third on Emmerson’s infield single. Lee smacked a double to right center to score DiCarlo with the go-ahead run and send Emmerson to third. Tate Samuelson’s single scored Emmerson, and Lee eventually came home on Nick Marinconz’s sacrifice fly.

In the final start of his five-year UH career, Logan Pouelsen pitched 42⁄3 innings, allowing 10 hits and five runs.

“They just did a nice job getting to Logan,” Trapasso said. “He made a couple bad pitches, and they made him pay for it. Just got beat today. It was the end of a really disappointing three-week stretch.”

After the game, the ’Bows made the 3-hour bus ride back to Los Angeles, where they stayed overnight in an LAX-area hotel. They return to Honolulu today.