HONOLULU — Andy Archer could not contain his grin.

Twenty-one games into the 2022 season, the graduate transfer from Georgia Tech became the first weekly Hawaii baseball starter to pick up a win after he threw 5 1/3 quality innings in the Rainbow Warriors’ 4-3 win over UC Irvine on Saturday night at Les Murakami Stadium.

Archer gave up five hits, two walks and three runs, striking out three to help UH (8-13 overall) improve to 2-3 in Big West play. Irvine (14-8), the conference leader entering the night, suffered its first Big West loss after four straight wins.

“It’s so good, dude. It’s kind of like that monkey on your back thing where it’s like, all right, is it this week? Is it this week?” Archer said after improving to 1-3 on the year in his sixth appearance. “You’re a starter, you gotta wait so long – I pitched last Friday, so I had an extra day of rest. I’m getting a little stir crazy, like all right, can we speed this thing up a little bit? But it felt really good to get the first one. Usually they come a little faster after that one.”

Buddie Pindel picked up the save with 3 2/3 innings of relief, giving up just one hit and fanning five. Irvine threatened to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth when Dub Gleed singled to right center. His pinch runner advanced to third when a pickoff throw from Pindel to first went toward the UCI bullpen.

Pindel settled down and induced a chopper that was fielded cleanly as the turnstile crowd of 2,695 erupted.

Coach Rich Hill resolved not to be satisfied with the one win over a respectable opponent. UH had its chances to win the series at Long Beach State last week but came up short. The Rainbow Warriors and Anteaters play the series rubber match at 1:05 p.m. Sunday. Hill said left-hander Cory Ronan is the possible starter.

“We talked to our team right after this win. It’s a great win, great individual performances,” said Hill, who mentioned Archer, Pindel, left fielder Scotty Scott and shortstop Kyson Donahue among them. “We really try to highlight some of the guys. But we also said, ‘hey, in 20 minutes from now, we have a job to do.’ And that’s the next level of this program, is we’re not here to win one game. We’re here to win championships, and how you do that is take care of business at home.”

None of Irvine’s runs allowed were earned; the Anteaters committed five errors over the first five innings.

“We’ve done a good job of that all year, capitalizing on walks, hit by pitch, and errors,” Hill said.

Leadoff man Aaron Ujimori went 2-for-4 with a triple and two runs scored. Catcher Dallas Duarte and right fielder Matt Wong each had two RBIs in the win.

First baseman Jacob Castro homered in the second inning for UCI.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.