While a winning streak ended, the lessons continue for the University of Hawaii softball team.
A shaky top of the fifth inning proved costly for the Rainbow Wahine as Utah closed the Hawaii Spring Fling Tournament with a 6-2 win on Monday afternoon in Manoa.
UH (13-7) entered the game at 4-0 in the tournament and with a six-game winning streak and took the lead in the bottom of the second on Mya’Liah Bethea’s team-leading seventh home run of the season.
But the Utes (16-4) — who won their first four games of the tournament by an aggregate score of 42-2 — pounced on UH’s defensive miscues in a five-run fifth, added an insurance run in the sixth on Ellessa Bonstrom’s solo home run and completed a 5-0 run through the five-day tournament at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium.
“We gave them a good game, but I told my players, ‘This is the speed of the game, this is what you have to catch up to, this is how it is on the Power Five level,’” UH coach Bob Coolen said after his team’s lone matchup against a Pac-12 team in the nonconference schedule.
“They’re confident, they have a swag about them, and their pitchers throw hard.”
In a matchup of left-handers, Utah’s Mariah Lopez struck out seven and walked two in her four innings and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the third.
UH sophomore Brianna Lopez had thrown three consecutive shutouts entering the game and ran her streak of scoreless innings to 261⁄3 while allowing one hit and facing the minimum through four innings, thanks in part to a line-out double play in the third.
Julia Jimenez led off the fifth with a four-pitch walk and Sophie Jacquez followed with a single. Jordyn Gasper’s high flyball to right field fell in and bounced over the fence, allowing Jimenez to score on the ground-rule double. Karlie Davison’s sacrifice fly gave Utah the lead and the inning was extended when Shelbi Ortiz was hit by a two-strike pitch.
A throwing error on Haley Denning’s infield single allowed two more runs to score and Allya Belarde’s single off Lopez’s glove scored Denning.
Lopez (7-3) wound up giving up five hits, striking out two and walking one over her five innings before being relieved by freshman Key-annah Campbell-Pu’a to start the sixth.
UH scratched out a run in the bottom of the sixth when an error on an attempted double play allowed Bethea to score, but Sydney Sandez held the Wahine to one hit in her three innings of relief.
“These games are prep games for conference, so any experience we can get is good experience,” Bethea said. “I think every game, good or bad, we can learn something from it whether its in the field or in the dugout.
“As (UH second baseman Maya Nakamura) put it in our team talk after the game, these are the games we want to play, these are the teams we want to see. Every game we play is a good way to learn how to play together and come together in any way that we can.”
The Wahine have two days to recharge before starting their last nonconference tournament before opening the Big West schedule.
They’ll open the four-day Outrigger Rainbow Wahine Classic on Thursday against Niagara, which is sticking around for another weekend after playing in the Spring Fling. UH will also play two games against defending Atlantic 10 champion Fordham, led by head coach and Mililani graduate Melissa Inouye, and two against Iowa State.
Bethea said UH’s rapid-fire tournament schedule is “a good reminder to take care of ourselves and take care of our bodies and get some rest between games.”
UH will close non-conference play with a stand-alone game against Niagara on March 14.