Hawaii baseball's 11-game win streak snapped
May 18—1/1
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CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
UH's Kyson Donahue watches his hit on March 30.
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College baseball's longest active winning streak ended at 11 with Hawaii's 4-3 loss to Long Beach State at Blair Field in Long Beach, Calif.
A Friday crowd of 1,915 saw shortstop Armando Briseno smack the go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to help doom the Rainbow Warriors to their first setback in 27 days.
"That's baseball," UH coach Rich Hill said.
The Rainbows tied it at 3 in the eighth when Kyson Donahue stretched a hit to center into a double and then came home on Matthew Miura's single to left.
In the bottom of the eighth, reliever Alex Giroux induced the first two outs. But then Giroux's first pitch to Briseno was a cutter that stayed up in the zone. Briseno pulled a 380-foot drive over the fence in left center. Briseno's third homer — all at Blair — was measured at an exit speed of 102 mph. Since April 16, in a span of 17 games, Briseno has raised his average from .221 to 312.
"Briseno's a good player," Hill said. "I always thought he was a good player last year as a freshman. But that's two outs, nobody on. That's an 0-0 cutter that he got the best of us on that pitch."
In the ninth, right-hander Mike Villani retired the side on six pitches — all strikes — for his ninth save.
In losing the opener of a three-game set, the 'Bows missed a chance to earn their fourth consecutive sweep of a Big West series. The 'Bows fell to 32-16 overall and 15-10 in the Big West. The Dirtbags improved to 24-25 and 8-16 under interim head coach Bryan Peters.
Donahue, Miura and Jared Quandt each had two hits for the 'Bows.
The Dirtbags cobbled an unearned run in the second inning. Adrian Lopez singled, stole second, continued to third on catcher DallasJ Duarte's errant throw, and scored on Cole Santander's RBI grounder.
The Dirtbags extended their lead to 3-0 in the third on John Newman Jr.'s sacrifice fly and Kyle Ashworth's run-scoring single to right.
But the 'Bows got on the board when Donahue and Duarte hit back-to-back doubles in the fourth.
They closed to 3-2 when Jake Tsukada hit a two-out single and scored on Austin Machado's ensuing double in the fifth.
The 'Bows received another gritty appearance from Connor Harrison, who was making his second series-opening start in place of left-handed Sebastian Gonzalez. Gonzalez has been shut down for the rest of the season because of tenderness in his throwing arm.
Harrison allowed two earned runs in four innings. In the past seven games, UH's starting pitchers have allowed seven earned runs in 36 innings (1.75 ERA).
Giroux, who allowed three hits in four innings of relief, suffered the loss to drop to 6-3.
"I thought pitching did a great job," Hill said. "I thought those guys battled. Connor had flashes of brilliance, and so did Alex. They got out of some jams — some leadoff guys on, some leadoff doubles. I thought they did a good job."
The teams meet today at 3 p.m. Randy Abshier, who has allowed five hits in 131/3 scoreless innings his past two games, will start for the 'Bows.
"Start another streak (on Saturday)," Hill said.
