HONOLULU — The Hawaii baseball team capitalized on a huge second inning to defeat Holy Cross 9-2 on Monday night at Les Murakami Stadium for its first series victory of the 2024 season.

The through line for UH in taking three of four games from the Crusaders was center fielder Matthew Miura, the sophomore out of Maryknoll School who went 3-for-5 with a double, a triple and three RBIs in Monday’s 9-2 series-clincher over the Patriot League team from Worcester, Mass.

For the series, Miura went 8-for-15 with 11 RBIs and four runs scored. He has hit safely in all but two of UH’s 12 games this season and is batting .375 with a team-high 19 RBIs.

“He’s on fire. He’s just brimming with confidence,” coach Rich Hill told the Spectrum Sports crew in the postgame. “That’s the kind of guy that he is. He plays with a chip on his shoulder, a really good kind of swagger. And he’s just locked in. He’s really bought in to what we’re doing here, he’s very coachable, and yeah, let’s keep it going Matty.”

Miura and Austin Machado went 3-for-5 and Sean Rimmer was 2-for-3 on a rainy Manoa evening.

UH (7-5) treated the rare Monday game like a mid-week contest and staffed it on the mound, with eight pitchers seeing action and combining on a four-hitter. Former catcher Nainoa Cardinez made his first start and tossed a clean first inning.

Redshirt freshman Zac Tenn, an Iolani School graduate from Kailua, allowed just one baserunner in the fourth and fifth frames to pick up the win, his third on the young season.  

The ‘Bows blew it open on the Crusaders (3-7) in the second inning with seven runs, all with two outs, and all charged to Crusaders starter Jaden Wywoda. The damage included a two-run triple by Miura that included some slightly premature celebration. Hill laughed about it afterward.

“I said ‘Matt, that was a great job, but you have to stay with me, because the ball is still in play. You can do all that later.’ He kind of smiled and said, ‘All right, I gotcha,’” Hill said.

The coach thought the turning point of the series was UH’s rally from four runs down to beat Holy Cross 7-4 on Sunday afternoon. Itsuki Takemoto picked up the save a day after taking the loss on Friday.

UH hosts former Western Athletic Conference foe Rice (3-8) for a four-game series from Friday to Monday at LMS.

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