As the road trip neared its conclusion, the University of Hawaii baseball team hit like it never wanted the journey to end.

UH sent 14 batters to the plate in a nine-run ninth inning Sunday, capping a 17-1 romp at UC Davis. And that was right after eight ’Bows batted in a four-run eighth.

They return home today after winning five of seven on a two-week California tour, including a three-game series sweep at CSU Bakersfield and taking two out of three at Davis. The other game was a 10-7 nonconference loss at Fresno State between the Big West series last Tuesday.

With Sunday’s win, UH improved to 11-7 and climbed to third in the conference. The Rainbows are 18-18 overall after a season-high 18 hits against the Aggies.

And this was just the second-most runs in a game on the trip; Hawaii beat Bakersfield 20-6 in their third game.

The offensive numbers are impressive, but they might also say something about the opponents’ pitching depth.

UH coach Rich Hill was ecstatic about his staff’s work from the mound.

“For me, the story of the weekend was pitching,” he said. “(Blaze Koali’i) Pontes, Cade (Halemanu), Tai (Atkins) and Buddie (Pindel). Man, that’s a lot of zeroes.”

For those four, it was 20 shutout innings, and Dalton Renne added three more in the combined 3-0 shutout with Halemanu on Friday. Pontes started Saturday and blanked the Aggies for the first seven innings of UH’s 3-2 loss.

On Sunday, Pindel, Atkins and Junior Flores combined to allow eight Aggies hits.

Atkins (3-2) yielded UC Davis’ only run on Nathan Peng’s homer in the seventh, but earned the win by striking out six in 32⁄3 innings. That included the first four batters he faced in relief of Pindel, who left with runners on second and third and one out in the fifth.

“That’s the Tai we all know and love,” Hill said. “That Tai will be showing up more and more.”

Pindell struck out five and walked just one (intentionally). Flores pitched the ninth, allowing just a double to Peng. UC Davis, which used six pitchers including loser Bryan Green (1-5), fell to 3-15 and 4-22.

The Rainbows played errorless defense for the second game in a row and third on the trip.

Seven Hawaii batters contributed at least two hits, with Matt Wong and Naighel Ali’i Calderon leading with three each.

But the game was scoreless until the Rainbows broke through with four runs in the sixth, aided by three of the Aggies’ six errors and a wild pitch.

Hawaii got its first batter on in all of the first four innings and a runner to third in three of them, but failed to score.

“We struggled with that until late today when we broke it open,” Hill said. “It’s offensive execution with a runner on third with less than two outs and we didn’t get it done a couple times. Today, yesterday, and at Fresno. If we executed in those situations we could have won those games, too. It’s been a thorn in our side, so we’ll go back to the drawing board on some of those things.”

Stone Miyao drove in UH’s first run with a sacrifice fly. It appeared his hitting streak would end at 12 games when he struck out to end the eighth.

But because of the Rainbows’ seemingly endless ninth inning, Miyao got another chance and hit a two-run single to extend the streak.

“How awesome was that? He started out rough, rough first half of this season,” Hill said of Miyao. “But he kept cracking rocks, working hard every day and didn’t give up.”

The Rainbows host Cal State Fullerton in a three-game series starting Friday at Les Murakami Stadium. On Saturday, a mural honoring the 1980 College World Series runner-up team will be unveiled.

“We gotta wear the throwback unis for that one, right?” Hill said.