By BART WRIGHT
By BART WRIGHT
Hawaii Tribune-Herald
The image of fire is, no pun intended, as old as the hills at UH-Hilo, where elevated land rises into a volcano and the school’s athletic teams are named after the Roman god of fire.
On Saturday, following a farcical 21-day layoff, the Vulcans, 6-4 this season in non-conference play, gets thrown into the fire in the first of a four-game weekend series against Concordia-Irvine (8-7-2, 0-2 in the PacWest), a fully loaded athletic department with last season’s conference pitcher of the year and a long history of success in the sport.
“We’re a very young team this year, with 11 freshmen, so we’re trying to learn and get better,” said Crystal Rosenthal, a nine-year veteran head coach (388-96), who attended Concordia and has been there for 21 years. As the athletic department’s senior administrator, Rosenthal is also the senior women’s administrator, overseeing 12 women’s sports — as many team as UHH field in both men’s and women’s athletics.
“We know Hilo is a really good team,” she said, “I know they have their former coach back again, I got a chance to watch them in Las Vegas (the Desert Stinger Tournament), and they can swing the bats, that was clear.”
Rosenthal’s modest summation of her team’s youth stepped around the Eagles’ biggest asset — pitching. Concordia was leading the conference in pitching heading into the weekend and while she wouldn’t say who would start Saturday’s games, the Vulcans will surely get a big dose of junior Grayson Harvey, last year’s PWC pitcher of the year.
Harvey was 21-6 last year, working 168 innings with 199 strikeouts (the entire UHH staff had 141 strikeouts last year), and a 1.79 earned run average. Opposing teams batted just .157 against her. Next in line for the circle is BethAnn McCann, a senior third-team all-PWC selection last year who was 13-3 with an even lower ERA of 1.13.
Those are daunting numbers to have returning when compared to the comparable top achievements for the Vulcans in the circle last year. Freshman Billi Derleth led the staff with a 12-8 record, 132 innings pitched and 62 strikeouts. Cyanne Fernandez’ 2.57 earned run average was the lowest for UHH.
“I was just looking at their stats, I know they have some good pitching,” Vulcans coach Cal Perreira said, “but the girls are ready to play, they’re all excited.”
For UHH, facing the conference’s returning top pitcher is like a splash of ice water in the face after spending the last 21 days at home without a game to play.
“It’s one thing not to play for 21 days when you already started the schedule,” he said, “but we will definitely be back in the flow. Our schedule from March 3 to April 3 has 26 games.”
It’s sort of an all or nothing schedule for the Vulcans and Perreira tried to keep them active over the last three weeks.
“We know they’re good, we know we’ll have to be at our best,” he said.”