Quality starts continue to provide the Hawaii baseball team with its longest stretch of quality play in some time.
The Rainbow Warriors attained their NCAA-leading 10th straight win with an 8-2 victory over UC Riverside at Les Murakami Stadium on Friday night, thanks in large part to Randy Abshier’s second straight scoreless start.
A night after reaching the 30-win plateau for the first time since 2012, UH (31-15, 14-9 Big West) achieved a double-digit win streak for only the second time since 2000. The Rainbow Warriors claimed their fourth straight series since getting swept at conference leader UC Santa Barbara in mid-April.
Morale is high, though a postseason berth is still unlikely with seven games remaining in the regular season and no winning teams left to face to boost UH's resume.
“It happens when you’re on this streak. The vibe in the dugout is awesome,” coach Rich Hill told the Spectrum Sports crew postgame. “People are comfortable with their roles. And we have a good time, anyway. I just believe in that. Baseball’s supposed to be fun. We have a real good synergy going right now.”
Abshier (4-4) went 6 1/3 innings with just four hits and no walks allowed while striking out five. The left-hander from San Diego has 13 1/3 straight scoreless innings going back to last weekend’s start against Cal State Northridge.
“He’s great. This time of the season that slider is really working for him,” Hill said. “He has a lot of confidence in that changeup. Playing with that 90 mph fastball, it’s tough on opposing hitters.”
When UCR got consecutive one-out singles on Abshier in the seventh, Itsuki Takemoto came out of the bullpen and elicited a strikeout and a lineout.
UH took a shutout into the ninth inning but the Highlanders (15-30, 5-18) got on the board against Takemoto with two walks and a double.
Dallas Duarte got a night off from catching as he swapped roles with usual designated hitter Austin Machado, who went 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles and drove in three runs.
Kyson Donahue reached the 100-RBI mark for his UH career with a single to left in the sixth. Jordan Donahue and Elijah Ickes registered multi-hit games – for Ickes it was his fourth straight.
Center fielder Matthew Miura made a highlight diving grab of Cole Koniarsky as the first out in the top of the ninth, and Jared Quandt made a similar play to Rudy Rodriguez IV in right to end the game.
The teams have the day off Saturday for UH Manoa graduation and are scheduled to finish the series at 1:05 p.m. Sunday.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.