Jared Alexander pitched six solid innings and Kevin Macdonald hit two home runs to help Hawai'i knock off Sacramento State, 8-4, today to take the Western Athletic Conference series, 3-1, at Les Murakami Stadium.

Alexander (1-1) allowed two runs, four hits and a walk with one strikeout in six innings for the Rainbows (24-13 overall, 7-4 WAC), who moved into a share for the conference lead with Nevada, which beat New Mexico State today.

Josh Slaats added two scoreless innings. Lenny Linsky allowed two runs in the ninth.

Tomm Elrod (4-2) went three innings allowing four runs, five hits and two walks with two strikeouts for the Hornets (21-17, 2-6), who also had a two-homer day by Tim Wheeler. He accounted for all the Hornets' runs.

Macdonald's two homers ties him for the team lead with eight with Kolten Wong, who missed a homer by inches as one of his drives hit the post holding up the wall. By ground rules, it is considered a double. Vinnie Catricala also homered for UH.

For the fourth game of the series, the Rainbows opened their scoring with the long ball. In the bottom of the first, Ryan Morford drew a one out walk, took second on a wild pitch, but stayed there when Vinnie Catricala grounded out to shortstop. Kevin Macdonald smashed his third home run of the series, this one to center, to put UH ahead, 2-0.

Hawai'i continued to go deep in the third. With one out, Vinnie Catricala and Macdonald hit successive home runs to increase UH's lead to 4-0. Catricala's went to left and Macdonald's second blast of the game went to right. Kolten Wong doubled to right and took third when Landon Hernandez grounded out to short. Jeffrey Van Doornum popped out to first to end the inning.

The Hornets showed their power in the sixth. Derrick Chung led off with a single to center, one out later, stole second, but stayed there when Jeff Roth grounded out to short. Tim Wheeler drilled a two-run home run to left-center to cut the Hornets' deficit in half.

The Rainbows added a run in the sixth against Nick Buchta. Van Doornum doubled to left off Nick Buchta to start the inning and took third on Josh Chevalier's sacrifice. Against a drawn-in infield, Sean Montplaisir doubled to left-center to score Van Doornum to make it 5-2.

Hawai'i added three in the eighth. Trevor Paine balked with the bases loaded to score Chevalier. With runners at second and third against a drawn-in infield, Monplaisir scored from third on Ryan Morford's ground single to center to put runners at the corners to increase UH's lead to 7-2. Paine was pulled for Alex Taku. Catricala's RBI single moved Morford to second and made it 8-2. Macdonald flied out to center.