UC Irvine turned the new scoreboard at Les Murakami Stadium into the odometer of a car rounding 99,999 and — if the driver’s lucky — headed for home.

For the first inning, zero was the new 10. And that pretty much guaranteed that Hawaii’s early visit atop the Big West baseball standings would come to an end in a couple of hours.

The Rainbow Warriors didn’t go down without a fight, however. Since there’s no room for double-digits, the inning-by-inning account on the scoreboard displayed a deadlock as the teams shook hands with the series’ completion Sunday afternoon.

In reality, the final was 14-4, Anteaters. UH walked away with a lopsided loss on a day that began with hopes for a sweep against a conference contender and consistently high-level program. The weekend was still a success, as Hawaii beat a team twice it never had before since joining the conference in 2013.

For most teams it would be preferable for the loss not to be at the end of the series, especially headed for the road. But UH coach Mike Trapasso said the ‘Bows won’t be checking the defeat onto the flight to California for this week’s three-game set at UC Davis.

“Doesn’t matter to these guys. They’re even-keeled and they’ll bounce back.” he said. “Of course it’s disappointing, you’re fired up to go for a sweep and almost before the anthem the game looks like it’s over.”

We’ve seen innings like this before, but only in slow-pitch softball. Many of the fans weren’t in their seats yet as 10 Anteaters reached (eight by hits) before the first out. Starter Alex Hatch lasted just six batters before he was relieved by Lawrence Chew.

The late arrivals did get to see the Rainbows scratch back with a run when they finally got to bat.

“Then we put the 3-spot up in the second, and we feel like we’ve got a chance,” Trapasso said. “They’re in their bullpen, too.”

But the Irvine relievers, especially Mitchell Miller with four scoreless innings, shut down the Rainbows. Four double plays helped.

“The whole game we felt like we had a chance and we tried to battle,” catcher Kekai Rios said. “But the hole turned out to be too deep.”

Rios said Hatch didn’t pitch poorly. “He was a little up, and they found holes,” the catcher said.

The senior lefty has had first-inning trouble before but Trapasso said he should be OK for his next start. “In some ways it’s easier to walk away from that and just say, ‘It was absolutely not my day.’”

The teams’ role reversal was somewhat shocking, considering the Rainbows rapped out 25 hits in winning the first two games 8-4 and 8-5.

“Law of averages,” Trapasso said. “That’s a program that got votes to win the conference and has gone to the College World Series with a coach (Mike Gillespie) who has won it. You don’t expect them to lay down and let themselves get swept. In the long run we can feel good. Even about today, other than of course the one inning.”

Call it a bad day, or even just a bad half hour. But taking the entire weekend series into account, the ‘Bows added to the sense of optimism the basketball programs’ success and football’s first week of spring practice generated at UH.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.