HILO, Hawai`i—Two games that couldn't have been more different on Friday night at Francis Wong Stadium added up to a split between Hawaii Hilo and Biola in Pacific West Conference baseball action.
The Vulcans won a dominant, fast and efficient game one 15-1, but the Eagles prevailed in a nightcap that lasted four hours and 36 minutes, 17-12. UH Hilo is now 5-5 on the season and 1-1 in the PacWest, while Biola moved to 10-4 overall and 4-2 in conference action.
UHH had 27 runs and 31 hits on the day and one very dominant pitching performance, but still had only one win to show for it when the long day\night was done.
In the first game, a continuation from a rain-halted Thursday contest, the Vulcans took a 1-0 lead from the night before and also inherited bases loaded in the bottom of the second. They took advantage of five walks and a hit batter to put plenty of runners on base. Before the inning was over, six runners had crossed the plate via only one hit—a three-run double by
RJ Romo.
Six runs looked to be plenty as pitcher
Kyle Alcorn was dealing. On Thursday,
Dylan Spain pitched two perfect innings, but gave way to Acorn when Friday's game picked up. Through four innings, the left-hander gave up only one hit and one walk as the Vulcans carried a 7-0 lead into the seventh inning.
Jerron Largusa led off the seventh inning with a deep blast over the leftfield fence for the first nick in Alcorn's armor. But the freshman fanned the next two guys, and would go on to retire eight of the final nine batters he faced.
In total, Alcorn pitched seven innings, gave up two hits, walked two and struck out nine.
He got plenty more run support as well. In the bottom of the seventh, the Vulcans put up another six-spot, this time using six hits.
Kamalu Neal had a two-run double,
Kila Zuttermeister a two-run single and
Edison Sakata added a base knock to drive in a run. In the eighth, Neal led off with a double, Mano Manago singled and
Micah Carter followed with a three-run homer to pad the score.
Zuttermeister had three hits in the game, while Manago, Neal,
Chris Aubort and Sakata added two each. Romo, Carter and Zuttermeister had three RBI apiece.
In the wild second game, Biola jumped out to an early lead with three runs in the first inning, thanks in part to a Largusa two-run double. The Eagles scored again in the second inning after two walks and a single by Joey Magro to take a 4-0 advantage.
But the Vulcans answered in the bottom of third with a two-out rally. It started with a hit batter, and then morphed into a four-run, five-hit inning.
Phillip Steering had an RBI-single, Romo added a two-run double to right field, and
Edwin Stanberry tied the game with a run-scoring single (4-4).
Biola regained the lead in the fourth, thanks to a pair of Vulcan errors and a two-run single by Magro, chasing starter
Brandyn Lee-Lehano. Nonetheless, the home team regained the lead in the bottom half, pushing across three runs with the benefit of only one hit—using two walks, a hit batter, a wild pitch and an Eagle throwing error to take a 7-6 lead.
It got crazier for both teams in the fifth inning. Biola scored six runs in the top half (three hits, one error) and UH Hilo scored three runs on three hits before a bizarre double play and strikeout ended the inning (for you scoring at home, it was 4-5-6-5-2). That made the count 12-10, visitors. Biola added another run in the seventh on a suicide squeeze, one more in the eighth on just one hit and three more in the ninth.
The home team went down in order in the eighth and made things interesting in the ninth with a run, but fell short beyond that.
The Vulcans had 16 hits in the game, but tonight that wouldn't be quite enough. Steering and Aubort had three hits, and the following players had two hits each—
Kyle Yamada, Manago and Sakata. Romo added three RBI, giving him six on the day. Biola had 15 hits from the top five players in their line-up and they had 19 knocks in the contest.
The two squads will play games three and four of the series on Saturday, starting at 4 p.m.
