UH baseball team suffers road loss at UC Davis

The Hawaii baseball team had too much unfinished business in Saturday’s 4-2 road loss to UC Davis at Dobbins Stadium on the UCD campus.

A crowd of 547 saw the Rainbow Warriors strand five runners in scoring position, hit into two momentum-deflating double plays and yield a two-run homer that proved to be the margin.

“Two-out hits are golden,” said Hill, whose ’Bows were 1-for-7 with two outs. “We got one with Benny (Zeigler-Namoa) at the end, which was great. I think we left a lot of guys on base. It was tough to score runs. The team that deserved to win the game won the game, in my opinion.”

The outcome evened this three-game series at a win apiece, and dropped the Rainbow Warriors to 25-20 overall and 14-12 in the Big West. The ’Bows remain in a fourth-place tie with Cal State Fullerton, two games ahead of sixth-place UC Irvine, with four games remaining in the regular season. The top five teams qualify for the Big West Tournament.

The Aggies took a 1-0 lead in part because of two debatable calls in the third inning. Joey Wright was ruled to have been struck by a pitch with one out in the third. Wright scooted to third on Zach Story’s double to left. There were no “official” replays, but ESPN+ appeared to show that Wright avoided being hit by the pitch, and UH left fielder Draven Nushida threw out Story at second on the double. Tyler Howard’s RBI grounder produced the game’s first run.

After retiring 10 in a row, Hekili Robello surrendered a one-out triple to Ethan Felix in the seventh inning. Jaxon Murphy followed with an opposite-field single to left to bring home Felix for a 2-0 lead.

One out later, two-way player Braydon Wooldridge showed his rare power with a two-run homer to right for a 4-0 lead.

Hill and pitching coach Keith Zuniga debated intentionally walking the left-swinging Wooldridge or bringing in left-handed reliever Grant Garman. A walk would have brought up the right-handed Wright with runners at first and second.

“Wright scares me,” Hill said.

Hill also noted Wooldridge entered hitting .326 against lefties, .260 against righties. Hill decided to stick with the right-handed Robello, whose pitch count was only at 82.

“I thought (Robello) was in great shape,” Hill said. “His velocity was holding. He was still at 90 mph. He didn’t walk anybody. They had to earn it, and they did.”

Hill added: “We thought we could jam (Wooldridge). He just got the head (of the bat) out a little bit. Got to give him credit.”

The ’Bows cut their deficit in half on Zeigler-Namoa’s two-run double in the eighth. But the ’Bows would get no closer against closer Rowen Barnes, who earned the four-out save, his 11th of the season. Barnes lowered his ERA to 0.85.

UH squandered scoring chances after the leadoff batter reached base in the fourth through seventh innings. In the fourth, Kamana Nahaku was picked off and Zeigler-Namoa was caught stealing. The ’Bows also hit into double plays in the fifth and seventh innings. The ’Bows could not cash in with runners on second and third with one out in the sixth.