Abshier holds down Rice, Hawaii baseball evens series on Miyao's homer

Randy Abshier gave the Hawaii baseball team a chance. Stone Miyao was happy to oblige on it.

Abshier’s latest gem kept Rice down and Miyao struck with the go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth in a 4-3 Rainbow Warriors victory that evened up the four-game series with the Owls at Les Murakami Stadium on Saturday night.

The senior left-hander Abshier took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and lasted seven full frames in front of an announced crowd of 4,127, striking out 11 against just one walk and one run charged. His totals over his last three starts are 31 strikeouts to two walks.

Somehow, he does not have an individual win over that stretch, but UH (8-6) went 2-1 in those games.

Rice (5-9) trailed 3-1 when UH closer Itsuki Takemoto came on in the eighth. Trey Duffield’s two-out single, followed by Kyte McDonald’s homer to left tied it up.

But the wiry second baseman Miyao, who ended the 2023 season with a walk-off home run against UC Santa Barbara, led off the bottom of the eighth for UH and homered to right on a 2-1 count.

Miyao went 2-for-4 for his first multi-hit game of the season and first long ball of the season.

Takemoto remained in the game for UH and hit a batter with two outs in the ninth but ended it on a swinging strikeout of Treyton Rank.

The teams play Game 3 of the series at 1:05 p.m. Sunday and conclude it at 2 p.m. Monday.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.