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Spurred by a six-run third inning, the UConn baseball team cruised to Monday night’s 9-2 victory over Hawaii at Les Murakami Stadium.
A crowd of 1,641 saw the Huskies cap a three-game win streak to win the four-game series. UConn improved to 9-4. The Rainbow Warriors fell to 7-7.
“They hang a six spot on you, and it’s tough to come back from that with (the Huskies’) good pitching,” UH coach Rich Hill said of the 7-2 deficit in the third inning.
The ’Bows, who surrendered 16 walks in Sunday’s loss, issued four bases on balls in the series finale. But the Huskies amassed 11 hits, including five doubles, and took advantage of three UH errors.
“I thought our bats were really feisty after the first game,” UConn coach Jim Penders said. The Huskies had only seven hits in Friday’s opener, but amassed 46 hits in the next three games.
The ’Bows also were hurt by self-inflicted mistakes. Catcher DallasJ Duarte’s throwing error set up UConn’s first run. In the seventh, shortstop Jordan Donahue could not cleanly field a two-out grounder, enabling the Huskies to score their ninth run.
In the UH third, Matthew Miura reached second on a walk and a groundout. But Miura was thrown out at third on a grounder to short. In the fifth, Donahue, who was on second, was caught in a rundown and eventually tagged out.
Hawaii loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. But pinch hitter Sean Rimmer’s towering flyout to left ended the threat.
The Huskies were forced to tweak their pitching rotation when right-hander Stephen Quigley was unable to make Saturday’s start.
“That kind of put us behind the eight ball,” Penders said. “We learned of (Quigley’s unavailability) after the loss on Friday night. Some guys had to step up, and they did that tonight on the mound.”
Right-hander Jack Sullivan allowed only one earned run and struck out four in five innings to improve to 2-1. Zach Fogell, Devin Kirby and Justin Willis combined to pitch four scoreless innings. Willis, who entered with three saves, was fresh after not pitching in the first three games.
UConn scored six runs on seven hits and a hit batsman against three UH pitchers in the third inning for a 7-2 lead. It was the third time in as many games the Huskies scored at least five runs in an inning.
Ben Zeigler-Namoa, who pitched a scoreless first, exited after the Huskies opened the third with three consecutive hits, including two doubles.
“He needs to throw his off-speed pitches for strikes, and just be more consistent in the zone,” Hill said of Zeigler-Namoa, who threw strikes on 19 of 36 pitches.
Trevor Ichimura, who replaced Zeigler-Namoa, was tagged for three runs on four hits in two-thirds of an inning.
“We’ll go back to the drawing board with Trevor,” Hill said. “He was 84 (mph) tops today. (We’ll) do some evaluations and see where he’s at.”
The ’Bows scored two runs in the second to go in front 2-1. With the second baseman over shifting toward the bag, Kyson Donahue grounded a single to right to open the inning. One out later, Jared Quandt grounded to third baseman Dominic Freeberger, whose on-target throw across the diamond went past first baseman Ben Huber for a two-base error. Stone Miyao grounded out to second to bring home Donahue. Quandt scored on Duarte’s single to left.
The ’Bows depart Wednesday ahead of Friday’s Big West opener against Cal Poly.
“This week was all about auditions,” Hill said of finalizing the 27-player travel roster. “We feel like we’ve got a good group that have earned the right to be there in Cal Poly on the road to start Big West Conference play.”
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