A long ball leads to baseball’s Wednesday win

HONOLULU Hawaii’s baseball team won with four home runs and another strong combined effort on the mound. He won his fourth straight and seventh in the last eight games with a 9-4 win over Cal Baptist on Tuesday.

Dallas Duarte hit a pair of solo runs while walking four times when Matt Wong and Jacob Igawa each hit a two-run homer to power the Rainbow Warrior offense. With the mound, five UH pitchers combined for another strong performance, leading the way Connor Harrisonwho shut out the Lancers over the final four innings on four hits.

Each team got on the board with a first inning home run. After Duarte led off the game with a walk, Wong crushed a 1-0 pitch into dead center for his fourth homer of the year to put UH on the board. Cal Baptist came back with a solo homer off the bat of Mitchel Simon in the bottom half to cut Hawaii’s lead to 2-1.

The ‘Bows (20-13) added three more in the third period via a long ball. Duarte led off the frame with a no-doubter into left field before Igawa blasted an opposite-field two-run single to right-center, scoring Wong and making it 5-1. Duarte then hit his second homer of the day with a leadoff single in the fourth to left field once again to stretch the lead to 6-1.

The Lancers (21-20) got one back with a two-out run in the bottom of the fifth, but UH answered right back with one of its own in the sixth. Jordan Donahue led off the inning with a single, then moved to second on a walk and third on an error before Igawa redeemed him with a sacrifice fly to make it 7-2.

CBU cut Hawaii’s lead to 7-4 with two runs in the sixth, but the ‘Bows answered again, this time with two in the eighth to open the lead. After a walk, a single and a pitch load the bases with two outs, Zach Storbakken came up and lined a 1-2 pitch to left field to stretch the Rainbow Warrior lead to 9-4.

Duarte had his first career multi-home run game and reached base in all six contests. He became the first UH player with four walks in a game since February 27, 2021 (Alex Baeza). Wong finished a triple shy of the cycle, going 3-6 with a double, a homer, two RBIs and three runs, while Igawa went 2-5 with three RBIs and a double. Storbakken continued his recent hot streak, going 2-for-5 with two RBIs in his fourth straight multi-hit game.

Harrison earned his seventh save of the year with four shutout innings Trevor Ichimura worked 1.2 scoreless innings with three strikeouts and Tyler Dyball went two innings with four strikeouts and gave up just one unearned run. Zach Losey got his first career start and earned the win after pitching 1.1 innings with a strikeout and just giving up a single.

The Rainbow Warriors jump back into Big West play with a three-game series at UC Riverside on Friday at 3:30pm HT.