A Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 1,045 watched the Rainbows (12-10 WAC, 29-18 overall) drop to third place, six games behind WAC leader and No. 4 Rice (17-3), and a half-game behind second-place Nevada (12-9).

Meanwhile, the Bulldogs (11-11, 23-28) moved a game behind the Rainbows.

Garza (5-2), a sophomore right-hander who had his first complete game of the season in a 4-0 win against UH at Fresno, pitched seven-plus innings last night. He allowed two runs, one earned, on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts. Eddie Romero and Matt Scott each pitched a scoreless inning in relief to hold the lead.

Ricky Bauer (8-3) was tagged for a season-high six runs on 11 hits with no strikeouts in 5 3/8 innings. It was only the second time in 14 starts he allowed double-digit hits.

The Rainbows did not help matters by failing on two sacrifice situations (each resulting in a force on the lead runner) and getting two runners doubled off second after fly outs.

"It was by far our worst game of the year," said Hawai'i coach Mike Trapasso. "I'm very disappointed. I'll give Garza some credit early, but the way he was throwing had nothing to do with our inability to execute, getting bunts down, moving runners over ... and we didn't pitch well. We left too many balls up.

"I don't know if we were tight or tired, but we were flat. We played like we didn't want to be up there and that's a shame."

For the Rainbows, it was a costly loss.

Trapasso invested in three innings (and 43 pitches) from Guy McDowell, one of the team's consistent relievers, with hopes his team could rally. McDowell will need to rest tonight.

"It was a gamble and it didn't pay off, so obviously he's out tomorrow," Trapasso said.

The Bulldogs jumped on Bauer for two runs on four hits in the second inning. Nick Moresi's two-run single came after the Rainbows forced a runner at the plate on a grounder for the first out of the inning in the bases-loaded situation.

Hawai'i tied it in the bottom of the fifth. Nate Thurber led off with a walk before Josh Green fouled out to shortstop Chris Patrick. After Thurber took second on a wild pitch, he scored on Brian Finegan's single to left. Finegan stole second, took third on a passed ball and scored on Andrew Sansaver's sacrifice fly to tie the score at 2.

But the Bulldogs rallied for four runs in the sixth inning, when Bauer was stung for five successive hits — back-to-back doubles by Richie Robnett and David Gomez for one run, a triple by Brandon Marcelli for the second, followed by an RBI single by Christian Vitters and a single by Brandon Esparza.

That ended Bauer's night for McDowell. After a wild pitch, Moresi followed with FSU's sixth consecutive hit, an RBI single in which Esparza was thrown out trying to score.

"That's impressive that they put six hits together and basically put the game out of reach," Trapasso said. "The way we were (not) executing and the (lack of) energy we had offensively, that was it."

Trapasso said Bauer was unable to locate his pitches.

"He really struggled with location on his off-speed stuff," he said.

McDowell had the Bulldogs shut down until the ninth. With one out, he walked DeAndre Miller and was pulled for Kaimi Mead. After a force play for the second out, Mead walked Patrick and gave up an RBI single to Robnett that made it 7-2.

The Rainbows threatened in the bottom of the ninth against Scott. Greg Kish and Schafer Magana opened with back-to-back singles to put runners at the corners. But Thurber struck out, Green flied out to shallow center and Finegan grounded out to end the game.

The series continues at 6:35 tonight. Stephen Bryant (7-3, 2.67) will start for UH against left-hander Brandon Miller (4-3), who went three innings in FSU's 13-8 victory over UH on April 25.

Fresno State at Hawai'i

PROBABLE STARTERS

1:05 p.m. Tomorrow—FSU TBA vs. UH RH Clary Carlsen (6-6, 4.31)

TICKETS: $6 adults for blue and orange sections; $5 adults, $4 65 and older, $3 students ages 4-18 and UH students for red section.

PARKING: $3