Neither team felt very good about a four-game split in the Pacific West Conference baseball series between the University of Hawaii at Hilo and the Academy of Art that concluded Monday night at Wong Stadium, but each team came away with something they needed.
Neither team felt very good about a four-game split in the Pacific West Conference baseball series between the University of Hawaii at Hilo and the Academy of Art that concluded Monday night at Wong Stadium, but each team came away with something they needed.
“Are we getting better?” asked UHH coach Kallen Miyataki after watching his team drop a 5-1 decision in the final game, “yes, I think we are. Am I disappointed that we didn’t come away with three wins? yes, I am.”
It was a similar story from the Urban Knights.
“I really thought we could have come out of this with three,” said Art U coach Dan McDermott, “but we slopped it up (Sunday), so this was really as good as we could hope for after that.”
The Sunday win by the Vulcans was their second in a row after dropping the first game of the series Saturday night. But the Sunday game was special for another reason — it was the first UHH win streak since the 2015 season.
“I did not know that,” Miyataki said, “but I guess that’s a good thing, I’d like to do that on the road trip and see how we end up.”
The Vulcans (3-5, 3-3 PWC), head out of town this week for four games at Concordia-Irvine, a team Art U (8-13. 4-4 PWC), beat before it came to the islands. After that, it’f four games at Azusa Pacific before returning home at the end of the month.
In this one, all the damage was done by the Urban Knights top four in the lineup. Collectively, leadoff hitter and starting pitcher Alex Fernandez (1-for-5), Mike Maleski (2-for-4, 3 runs), Erick Luna (3-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI), and Izac Bauer (2-for-3, 1 run, 3 RBI), went 8-for-17 at the plate, they scored all 5 runs and accounted for 4 RBI.
“That’s what they’re supposed to do,” said McDermott with a laugh. “We have a calculation for a quality at bat that includes eight different things, and when somebody gets one, I put a ‘Q’ next to their name on the scorecard. There were a lot of ‘Qs’ up there.”
Freshman Brandyn Lee-Lehano got his second start of the season and it turned out a bit better than his first when he was chased after two innings. This time, he got a strikeout on Fernandez, the first batter of the game — he had no strikeouts in his first start — and wound up with three for his three innings of work.
“There was some improvement there,” said Miyataki, “but we need to throw more strikes early in the count. When you fall behind batters like those top four, you have come over the plate and that’s where we got into trouble.”
Miyataki used five pitchers and might have liked what he saw from Alec Telles, the other freshman competing with Lee-Lehano for more game time. Telles threw two innings, faced seven batters and allowed just one base hit, no bases on balls and no strikeouts.
Lee-Lehano got bailed out twice by his defense with double plays that ended both the first and second innings but he wasn’t so fortunate in the third when he allowed singles to the first two batters, then Bauer stroked a triple just inside the left field line, then after getting two outs, Jackson Murphy doubled in Bauer.
It was a step forward for the freshman from his first outing when he gave up seven hits and three earned runs in two innings. This time he struck out the leadoff batter in the game, added two more and seemed to have better command of his pitches.
Art U added another in the fourth off Cole Nakachi when Luna doubled in Maleski who reached on a single to right field.
Notes: Lee-Lehano started the game with a 13.5 earned run average after allowing three earned runs in his first, two-inning start. After giving up three more in his three innings Monday his ERA dropped to 10.8… . The last timer UHH won three in a row was in the 2015 season… . Phil Steering continued to lead the Vulcans at the plate with a double and two singles in four plate appearances.