No. 4 Rice hammers Hawai'i, 13-4, to sweep series

By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

Rice flexed all of its fourth-ranked muscle in pounding Hawai'i, 13-4, yesterday to complete a Western Athletic Conference baseball series sweep.

Hawai'i's Kevin Gilbride scored from first base on Scooter Martines' two-out, bloop double in the first inning that gave the Rainbows a short-lived 1-0 lead against No. 4 Rice at Les Murakami Stadium. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"This was huge," Rice second baseman Eric Arnold said. "Anytime you can win on the road, especially here in Hawai'i, it's amazing. It's a really good start for our conference season."

Arnold was a home run shy of hitting for the cycle, batting 4 for 6 with two doubles, a triple and four RBIs. He flied out to right and grounded out to third in his final two at-bats.

"Of course I was thinking about it," Arnold said of the cycle. "I was trying not to go for it, but it was there in the back of my mind."

Other prolific Owls yesterday were Vincent Sinisi (3 for 3), Paul Janish (3 for 5), Hunter Brown (2-4, 3 RBIs) and Chris Kolkhorst (2 for 5).

Jeff Niemann (3-0), a 6-foot-9, 260-pound freshman right-hander, gave up seven hits, three runs, two earned, and a walk in 5¡ innings. Wade Townsend (2á) and David Aardsma (1) finished the rest of the game for the Owls.

The Owls scored off three of the four UH pitchers. Starter Aaron Pribble (2-2) allowed five runs in three-plus innings; Ricky Bauer gave up six in 3¡; and Chad Giannetti surrendered two solo home runs in 1á. Only Jason Piepmeier went unscathed in a scoreless ninth.

"Today you basically forget about this because we were outmanned," UH coach Mike Trapasso said. "They're definitely the best team we've played this year. Offensively, it's the best team I've seen in a couple of years."

The Rainbows took advantage of a Rice error and an RBI bloop double by Scooter Martines to take a 1-0 lead in the first. But the advantage was wiped out by Rice in a three-run third. The Rainbows pulled to 3-2 in the bottom of the third on Cortland Wilson's two-out, RBI single, but the Owls put the game away when they batted around in a six-run fourth inning, highlighted by a two-run double by Arnold and two-run single by Brown.

The Owls added an RBI double in the sixth by Arnold, an RBI double in the seventh by Kolkhorst, as well as solo home runs by Brown and Mike Lorsbach in the eighth.

Gregg Omori, who was 2 for 3, had a run-scoring double in the sixth and Chad Boudon hit a solo home run in the seventh for UH.

For the Rainbows, if anything good came out of the sweep, it was how they played with intensity in Friday's and Saturday's losses (9-7 and 6-3).

"We were just overmatched today," Trapasso said. "We hung with them the first two nights. That's something you have to build on. With the two previous weekends (against Brigham Young and UC Irvine), we didn't play with that approach and intensity."

Martines, one of the team's captains, agreed with Trapasso.

"The first night, we came out with intensity and the right approach," he said. "It showed that we can hang in with these guys. We just have to do it on a consistent basis."

The Rainbows, in the midst of their third three-game losing streak of the season, will try to rebound against UH-Hilo in a four-game, non-conference series starting Friday on the Big Island.

Last year, UH swept six games from the Vulcans in their final season as a WAC affiliate. Half of the wins were by two runs or fewer. In last year's finale on Les Murakami Night, UH rallied for seven runs in the bottom of the ninth to beat UHH, 9-8.

Notes: UH's scheduled exhibition against Matsusaka (Japan) tomorrow was canceled earlier in the year ... The last time UH was swept at home was last season against TCU, which left the Western Athletic Conference to join Conference USA ...Hawai'i resumes WAC play March 22-24 when it plays host to San Jose State.