Hawaii baseball team drops rain-delayed Game 2, series at UC Santa Barbara

The Hawaii baseball team’s rainy stay in Santa Barbara, California, got a little drearier on Saturday.

After a three-hour weather delay, UC Santa Barbara defeated UH 10-6 at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium to claim the three-game Big West series.

The Rainbow Warriors (19-13, 4-7 BWC) will attempt to salvage the last game of the series at 12:05 p.m. Hawaii time Sunday, weather permitting.

First baseman Zander Darby homered, tripled and drove in four runs from the eighth spot in the lineup to lead the Gauchos (20-10, 7-4).

Harrison Bodendorf got the start for only the second time in his last eight appearances and went four innings, giving up five runs as UCSB jumped out to a 5-0 lead.

“I thought we did a good job against Bodendorf,” Gauchos coach Andrew Checketts told UCSB Athletics. “He was a freshman All-American last year and he had his way with us at their place last year. Zander had the two big hits, left-on-left. The homer was really good, and then we let our guard down for an inning, gave them a couple free passes and hits, and the game started speeding up on us a little bit, but we were able to get it stopped.”

The ‘Bows sent 10 batters to the plate in the sixth inning and plated five to tie it up, chasing UCSB starter Mike Gutierrez, but Aaron Parker responded for UCSB in the bottom of the frame with a two-run homer off of Alex Giroux.

UH coach Rich Hill swapped Giroux’s starter job for Bodendorf’s relief role this weekend. Giroux went the last three innings with five runs allowed (four earned) in taking the loss (4-2).

Dallas Duarte knocked in a fielder’s choice RBI in the eighth to bring UH within 8-6 and Austin Machado walked to load the bases with two outs, but Jared Quandt struck out against Matt Ager, an All-Big West first-teamer in 2023. UCSB tacked on two insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth.

Kyson Donahue went 4-for-5, the first four-hit game for a UH player this season, but no other UH player posted a multi-hit game. Jordan Donahue went 1-for-2 with two walks to extend his hitting streak to 15 games.

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