(Vevesi Liilii blasts a three-run homer to left field. Photo courtesy of Rick Ogata)

HILO, Hawai`i--UH Hilo's dream of playing three games in a day was washed away by rain, but they did get to play one game for the first time in over a year and posted a win as well during a 6-1 swamp of Hawaii Pacific on Sunday at the Walter Victor Softball Complex.

Vevesi Liilii smashed a three-run homer to highlight a six-run third inning for the Vulcans and Valerie Alvarado worked around some first inning trouble to pick up the win in the pitcher's circle as the Vulcans won their season opener (1-0). The Sharks leave the Big Island at 0-3 on the young season. 

The second game of the scheduled tripleheader was called off with UH HIlo up 4-0 in the bottom of the first inning. That game will be started from scratch at a later date in Honolulu on a UH Hilo trip to Oahu. 

Today's first pitch was at 10 am, and HPU struck first. Alvarado walked the first batter she faced, and Cieana Curran would soon work her way around the bases to put the Sharks up 1-0. Curran moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Brandi Leong and was driven home by Kanoe Tanigawa. 

HPU's Malia Torres was effective early in the pitching circle, not allowing a hit through the first two innings. But with one out in the third inning, things began to come unraveled for Torres and the Sharks.

It began with UHH's first base hit, by their number nine hitter Angel Prewitt. Then Torres hurt herself with a throwing error after coraling a comebacker to put two runners on base. That brought up Liilii, who, after working a full count, sat back and hammered a change up deep over the left field fence. That put UH Hilo up 3-0, but they weren't done yet. 

Markie Okamoto followed with a double, Skylar Thomas drilled an RBI-single, Chloe Domingo had an RBI base hit and Prewitt walked with the bases loaded to bring in the sixth run. The Vulcans sent 12 batters to the plate in the inning, finishing with five hits and helped by three Shark errors.

The Vulcans wouldn't score again as Megan Wilson came out of the bullpen to pitch 3.1 very effective innings, but the damage had most certainly been done. Alvarado took advantage of the offensive help and settled in, pitching seven complete innings and allowing only four hits, the one earned run, walked three and didn't strike out a batter. 

UH Hilo had seven hits in the game, two of them by Liilii. The Sharks had four hits, two of them by Tanigawa..

The Vulcans will stay home and host Chaminade next weekend, with Saturday and Sunday doubleheaders scheduled to begin at noon.

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