Jayson Kramer was in his usual form and shortstop Greg Garcia was a beneficiary of the pitcher's performance.

Garcia broke a school record for assists in a game with 11 last night in Hawai'i's, 7-2 win against Utah Valley in the opener of the non-conference series before 1,019 at Les Murakami Stadium.

He tied the record (five others) a couple of weeks ago against Louisiana Tech, a game also started by Kramer. But when he threw out Utah Valley's Kirk Doxey on a routine grounder to end the game, he set himself apart.

"I got the record?" Garcia said. "That's cool."

Of course, he got a lot of help from Kramer, whose groundouts-to-air-outs ratio was nearly 4 to 1 entering the game. Kramer (5-4) pitched eight innings, allowing seven hits while striking out seven. Of the 24 outs he recorded, 16 were from grounders.

Josh Slaats pitched a perfect ninth, the third out being the grounder to Garcia.

"That's pretty cool," Kramer said. "We're just breaking records all over the place."

"That's sweet," UH coach Mike Trapasso said of Garcia's record. "Good for him."

Kolten Wong's solo homer in the eighth was the team's 61st of the season, an ongoing single-season school record.

But Kramer's outing was a nice tuneup for more important matters: Next week's Western Athletic Conference tournament that will be held here.

"This was one of the rare occasions I had all my pitches working for me," Kramer said. "I was throwing them in every count that I wanted.

"Hopefully, we just catch fire in this series and then we have all the momentum going into the WAC tournament."

The Rainbows (30-22) supported Kramer early, scoring twice in each of the first three innings against Wolverines' starter Jory Jensen (2-5), who went six-plus, allowing six runs and nine hits.

The Rainbows took a 2-0 lead in the first. With runners at the corners, Kevin Macdonald delivered an RBI single. On the play, center fielder Cole Anderson misplayed the hit, allowing the runner on first to score.

In the second inning, Garcia's two-run double increased UH's lead to 4-0.

In the third, the Rainbows scored on an RBI double by Christian Johnson and RBI single by Kevin Fujii, who was 2 for 3.

The Wolverines (16-34) scored their only runs on RBI singles from Goose Kallunki in the fourth and sixth innings.

Wong's lead-off homer to right in the eighth made it 7-2.

Meanwhile, Hawai'i got some good news regarding catcher Landon Hernandez. Trapasso said a magnetic resonance imaging of his injured wrist was negative. Hernandez had a cortisone shot, but will sit out this series, Trapasso said. He is hopeful Hernandez will be OK for the WAC tournament.

NOTES

New Mexico State clinched a WAC tournament berth by splitting a doubleheader with Louisiana Tech yesterday. The Aggies needed just one win to earn the trip to Hawai'i.

Another reminder: tomorrow's starting time is 7:35 p.m. because of UH graduation earlier in the day.