University of Hawaii baseball plays for a second-place finish in Big West against Cal Poly

There is importance to the final three days of the University of Hawaii baseball team’s 2022.

In the three-game series that begins tonight at Les Murakami Stadium, Cal Poly (20-7 in the Big West) and UH (18-9) are playing for a second-place finish behind regular- season champ UC Santa Barbara.

Saturday’s series finale will be senior day for starting pitcher Andy Archer, reliever/starter Buddie Pindel, left fielder Scotty Scott, center fielder Cole Cabrera and right fielder Matt Wong. With a medical hardship available, Wong is said to be 50-50 on returning for the 2023 season. Scott also has another season of eligibility available because of the COVID exemption, but he is retiring as a college player and will undergo elbow surgery this summer. Scott is set to coach at Cuesta College this fall.

And this will be reunion for Cabrera, who transferred from Cal Poly last summer. “Really excited to play Cal Poly this weekend,” said Cabrera, a 2017 Punahou School graduate. “Got a lot of good friends, have a lot of great memories there, and it’s just going to be a lot of fun. My new team (and) my alma mater colliding. … I’m so happy that I get to end my career at the Les in Manoa. My last high school at bat was at Ala Wai (Community Park). It’s crazy that my last college at bat is going to be five minutes up the road.”

But for the Rainbow Warriors, this dream season comes with an expiration date. Despite winning 15 of 18 Big West games since April 6 — the second-best mark among league members during that span — the ’Bows (27-22 overall) have no chance to earn an at-large berth in the NCAA Regionals. Their fate was decided with UC Santa Barbara four games ahead of the pack with three to go and the Big West’s reluctance to have a postseason tournament.

“We signed up for it,” UH coach Rich Hill said of the no-consolation-prize format. “We knew there was no conference tournament this year. We had to take care of business in the conference schedule. I’m not upset. We’re not going to point fingers or say, ‘if I coulda, woulda, shoulda,’ or make excuses. This was the deal. We knew what we had to do to get it done in terms of the result side of coming in first place.”

But Hill, who was hired last June as successor to Mike Trapasso, achieved successful incremental steps in building the ’Bows, who were picked to finish sixth in the Big West. Hill went with a scaled-down roster to develop unity, made strategic hires, reinforced community ties with an extended camp schedule, and emphasized small-ball tactics.

In 50 games last year, the ’Bows put down 30 sacrifices and went 34-for-51 on steals. In 49 games this year, the ’Bows have 36 sacrifices and are 56-for-84 on steals. Kyson Donahue has played five positions. Nainoa Cardinez is UH’s only experienced available catcher for this series. Eight pitchers have both started and relieved.

Hill hired long-time scout Dan Cox, who won a World Series ring with the Atlanta Braves, as one of two full-time assistant coaches. Because only three full-time coaches (including the head coach) are allowed to recruit, Cox can work with players, coach first base, and have the flexibility to break away to scout and recruit during the season. Volunteer coach Mat Troupe focuses on the pitching staff. During this week’s news conference, Hill said the ’Bows’ success is “a testament to, more than anything else, the players and the assistant coaches in this program.”

The ’Bows close against a Cal Poly team that has won 15 of the last 21. Shortstop Brooks Lee and starting pitcher Drew Thorpe are among 31 semifinalists for the Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s top college player. Lee and Thorpe are the only Big West players on the list.

D1Baseball projects Lee, who is hitting .374 with 15 homers, as the No. 1 overall pick in July’s Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft. Baseball America predicts Lee will be the first or second player picked.

Thorpe is 9-1, with a 2.23 ERA and the nation’s seventh-best WHIP (0.86). He is sixth nationally with an average of 5.49 hits per nine innings.