Hawaii
Hawaii baseball team attains walk-off victory over Cal Poly in series opener
HONOLULU — Once again, the Hawaii baseball team’s Friday starter did not last very long.
This time it wasn’t a problem.
Some long relief from freshman Sebastian Gonzalez held Cal Poly down long enough for Austin Machado to lift a sacrifice fly to deep center, bringing home Naighel Ali‘i Calderon for the walk-off run in a 4-3 win over the Mustangs at Les Murakami Stadium.
Calderon, the speedy senior from Lanai City, Lanai, entered the game as a pinch hitter for Sean Rimmer in the bottom of the sixth. He led off the ninth with his first hit of the season, a single to right, and got to second on Jordan Donahue’s fielder’s choice bunt. He reached third on a wild pitch by Jacob Torres and Cal Poly issued an intentional walk to Dallas Duarte to load the bases. Machado, who was 3-for-4, lofted a ball on a 1-0 count off of Tanner Sagouspe.
It was the second walk-off win of the season for UH (21-14, 5-8 Big West), which improved from 10th to a tie for seventh with its first win in its last four BWC games. Cal Poly (21-15, 11-5) was knocked out of a first-place tie with UC Irvine.
Donahue went 2-for-4 and Dallas Duarte had two hits, including a first-inning double that allowed UH to take a 1-0 lead on Matthew Miura’s single that caromed off of Mustangs pitcher Jakob Right.
Donahue extended his hitting streak to 18 games, the fourth longest streak in program history, and the longest for UH since Neal Honma strung together 19 games between the 1997 and 1998 seasons.
After Cal Poly put together a three-run fourth inning, UH tied it on a two-run double down the right field line by freshman Elijah Ickes in the bottom of the frame.
Coach Rich Hill elected to swap out starter Harrison Bodendorf and go-to reliever Alex Giroux after just 1 2/3 and 1 1/3 scoreless innings, respectively, setting the table for Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, of Oakley, California, went five innings and has thrown 11 1/3 frames of relief over his last two appearances with nine strikeouts and two walks over that span.
Danny Veloz (5-1) worked around a two-out single in the ninth to pick up the win.
UH and Cal Poly will resume the series at 6:35 p.m. Saturday. Randy Abshier is expected to start for the ‘Bows.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.