Lee pitches UH over Hornets
By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
On a night he admittedly didn't have his best stuff, Bryan Lee still pitched well enough to lift Hawai'i over Sacramento State, 6-3, last night in collegiate baseball.
A shivering gathering of 600 at Les Murakami Stadium watched the Rainbows (2-3) snap a three-game losing streak in spoiling the Hornets' season debut.
Scooter Martines' fifth-inning bloop three-run triple — a miscommunication by the Hornets' defense — turned out to be the difference.
"I got away with a lot of bad pitches," Lee said. "I wasn't as sharp as I was against Florida State, that's for sure."
Lee (1-0) allowed six hits, a walk and three runs, two earned, in 7á innings. He allowed two solo home runs to No. 3 batter Chris Kinsey, the first on a fastball and the other on a slider. "Both were up in the zone," Lee said.
Still, Lee was able to live up to the "force contact" tenet of coach Mike Trapasso. Of the 28 batters he faced, 25 either put the ball in play within three pitches or had two strikes within the first three pitches. Lee had four strikeouts and induced eight grounders accounting for nine outs. He used 87 pitches, 59 for strikes.
"It was a good effort on his part because he didn't have his best stuff," Trapasso said. "His velocity was kind of average, but decent enough. But the main thing was he was able to battle. The second time through the order was the key for him, (he) started to settle down, started mixing his pitches better."
After giving up the two-out solo homer to Kinsey in the first, Lee retired 15 of the next 16 batters. In the seventh, when he gave up Kinsey's second homer, he surrendered a single to Joe Evans, but escaped further harm by getting Mario Celillo to ground into a double play.
Lee gave way in the eighth with two outs, when the Rainbows' lead was cut to 4-3 following shortstop Cortland Wilson's throwing error that pulled first baseman Gregg Omori off the bag. Left-hander Matt Le Ducq hit the first batter he faced, but got Kinsey to line out to left fielder Kevin Gilbride, who made a catch toward the left-field line for the final out.
The Rainbows got insurance runs in the top of the ninth on an RBI double by Wilson and a run-scoring single by Tim Montgomery to make it 6-3.
After Le Ducq got the first out, he walked Celillo and gave up a single to Matt Wilson. Right-hander Sean Yamashita got the final two outs for his first save of the season.
Lee and Hornets' starter Kevin Marzion (0-1) engaged in a duel for most of the game. Marzion struggled in the fifth when the Rainbows tagged him for three runs.
With one out, Lane Nogawa singled and stole second. After Arthur Guillen walked, both runners executed a double steal. After Brent Cook struck out, Omori was intentionally walked after drawing a 3-0 count. Then on a 1-1 pitch, Martines lifted a pop up behind first base. The ball landed between the right fielder Celillo, first baseman Kinsey and second baseman Bobby Ciani for a bases-clearing triple.
"We made one mistake tonight that really came back to hurt us," Sacramento State coach John Smith said. "Just a breakdown in communication. Somebody thought somebody called for it and nobody returned the communication, so he backed off and pretty soon, nobody got it."
The Rainbows weren't perfect either. In the two-run eighth, Wilson's double should have netted him an extra base. On the play, Wilson stopped at second after seeing Trapasso's sign to hold up, but Wilson lost sight of the ball, not knowing the throw was rolling toward first base, which would have made it easy for him to take third.
"I knew I hit the ball in that area," he said, pointing toward right-center, "so I turned and looked in that area and I didn't even see where the ball was. By the time I saw the ball rolling over there, it was too late."
The series continues at 6:35 tonight. Senior left-hander Aaron Pribble (1-0) will start for the Rainbows against the Hornets' sophomore right-hander Marshall Plouffe.
