Welcome to Hawaii baseball, Draven Nushida.
The former Cal State Fullerton utility player’s debut with the Rainbow Warriors came, of all places, as a two-out pinch hitter in a tie game, the winning run on third in the bottom of the ninth in the 2025 season opener against Marshall at Les Murakami Stadium on Friday night. In a moment of magic, Nushida delivered, sending the first pitch he saw over the head of Thundering Herd right fielder Jackson Halter and near the base of the wall for the walk-off.
Sophomore Xaige Lancaster, who came in to score the walk-off run for the 9-8 victory, sprinted out to center field to meet Nushida, with the rest of the ‘Bows right on his heels as Les Murakami Stadium dimmed the lights and debuted its LED strobe effect while the crowd of 2,588 (3,806 tickets issued) went wild.
[Note: See below for more photos of Hawaii-Marshall baseball in the season opener.]
“I was running around, like, this is the coolest thing I've ever done,” said Nushida, a 2022 Mid-Pacific Institute graduate from Kailua. He saw a pitch high and inside.
Before Friday, the only time Nushida played at LMS was with CSUF in the final regular-season series of 2024.
He came back home to play, he said, "just being able to play in front of my hometown, just the fans and everything."
It was the first season-opening victory in coach Rich Hill’s four years in Manoa and, including the end of the 2024 season, extended UH’s overall winning streak to six and home winning streak to 12, the longest active in NCAA Division I baseball.
Coach (assistant Dave) Nakama and Draven are the heroes,” Hill said. “He said, ‘Do you mind if I swing first pitch?’ Dave's like, ‘Heck, no, go for it.’ So the rest is history.”
In a scary moment in the bottom of the fifth, Elijah Ickes lined a hard-hit ball right at Hill in the third base coaches box. Hill just managed to get his right hand up to deflect it as he went down onto the brand-new Murakami Stadium turf.
He quickly got up and waved.
“Hey, I'm fine. There's a lot of people worse off than me,” he said afterward. “If I get a baseball to the hand and, you know, we win a game, you know, I'm fine.”
Marshall brought even more power early. It hit three home runs to take leads of 5-0 and 7-3. The Thundering Herd chased starter Sebastian Gonzalez with just 2 2/3 innings pitched and five runs (four earned) charged.
Isaiah Magdaleno helped settle things with 10 outs of relief, striking out five while yielding the third home run of the night to Ethan Murdoch, the designated hitter’s second.
The Sun Belt team picked up an insurance run in the top of the ninth, 8-6, forcing UH to scramble if it was going to extend its run of success at home.
Senior Ben Zeigler-Namoa got things off to an encouraging start in the bottom of the frame with a leadoff double to right off of closer Tim Baird.
Ickes singled to right to cap a 4-for-5 night from the cleanup spot. Lancaster, a redshirt freshman who was injured last season, hit chopped an RBI single to short.
Itsuki Takemoto, one of last season’s best pitchers, is expected to play two ways this season. The popular player from Japan struck out but Ickes scored the tying run on a passed ball.
Jared Quandt grounded out to Baird but advanced Lancaster to third.
While Aidan Kuni was at the plate, Hill thought Baird balked, which would’ve ended the game. But the officials did not call it despite his protests.
After Kuni was hit by a pitch, Hill instructed him to remain at first on any ground ball to keep things clear for Lancaster.
"Ecstatic, ecstatic," Lancaster said afterward. "I mean, we always got that next guy up mentality, never, never back down, never flinch. And we got guys all throughout the lineup that can do it. And today it was Draves, and I couldn't be more, more psyched for that dude."
Dylan Waite picked up the win by getting the last out in the top of the ninth.
Before the game, the late, legendary UH baseball radio broadcaster Don Robbs was honored with a moment of silence, and his granddaughters threw out ceremonial first pitches. Robbs, who retired from calling games after the 2016 season, had a vacant chair on the concourse level draped in lei with a bag of popcorn.
UH and Marshall are scheduled to play a seven-inning, nine-inning doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1:05 p.m. Takemoto is set to take the turf mound for the Rainbows.
NFL veteran Marcus Mariota is expected to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in the first game.
Note: This story was updated with details, quotes and photos.
Correction: Xaige Lancaster is a sophomore for UH baseball. A previous version of the story had the wrong year classification.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.
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