HONOLULU — Rich Hill joined some prestigious company on Saturday night.

A sellout audience at Les Murakami Stadium saw the Hawaii baseball team rally to defeat Wichita State 4-2, giving the fourth-year Manoa coach his 100^th victory with the program. On an evening in which legendary UH pitcher Derek Tatsuno gave the ceremonial opening toss, Hill matched Tatsuno’s old skipper, Murakami, as the fastest to get to the century mark — 161 games.

Hill, a former program leader at Cal Lutheran, San Francisco and San Diego, has 1,179 career victories spanning 38 years, fifth among active collegiate coaches.

Afterward, he was adorned with a maile lei and handed a baseball marked with “100.”

“(I’ll) put it right on my desk, man, right next to my shaka sign,” Hill said.

A night after UH (6-1) saw its 16-game home winning streak snapped, it trailed WSU (2-4) by a run through four innings. But Xaige Lancaster’s two-run double off Jack Mount in the sixth put the Rainbows ahead 3-2 and Ben Zeigler-Namoa added two-out RBI hit in the seventh for a 2-1 series lead.

“It's all about them,” Hill said, nodding at the players making their way into the home dugout toward the locker room. “That miracle year we had in Year 1 (in 2022), the year that Stone (Miyao) hit the walk off home run against Santa Barbara (to close the season), last year's 37-win, basically regional type of team, and now the start this year.

“To be mentioned, along with Coach Murakami, that's my favorite thing about this milestone.”

Cooper Walls got a no-decision making his first start of the season, lasting four innings with two runs, two hits and two walks allowed with four strikeouts.

Relievers Dylan Waite, Zacary Tenn, Cory Ronan and Isaiah Magdaleno kept the Shockers off the scoreboard over the final five innings. Ronan picked up his first win of the year and Magdaleno his first save as they threw two innings apiece.

The Rainbows and Shockers throw out first pitch in the finale of their four-game 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.