Hawaii completes series sweep over UC Davis with 13th-inning balk-off

HONOLULU — Manoa Magic, Monday night in March-edition.

The Hawai’i baseball team came away with a thrilling 13-inning walk-off victory on a balk, 2-1, to complete the series sweep over UC Davis at Les Murakami Stadium.

With two outs and the bases loaded and David Vergel de Dios facing an 0-2 count, Jared Quandt sprinted to home before the pitch delivery. In a split-second moment, Vergel de Dios fouled off the pitch, Quandt slid under the swing and the home plate umpire pointed at the mound and signaled a balk to give the Rainbow Warriors (17-5 overall, 6-3 Big West) the victory in extra innings.

“That’s definitely a unique one,” Quant said of how the game-winning run was scored. “That’s the first for me and I’m just happy that we’re on the right side of it.”

Hawai’i coach Rich Hill, who stood in the third base coach’s box during the play, said the method of victory was a new experience for him as well.

“I’m not sure if I had that in the books in my life but all the credit goes to Jared Quandt,” said Hill. “He just walked down there deep and just took off before (the pitcher) had a chance to start his wind up, I think that’s where the balk was called.”

HSRN Footage and television replays show UC Davis relief pitcher Carter Delaney’s routine before his windup include a shuffling off the feet before pausing for a second to get set to throw the pitch. When Quandt broke for home during Delaney’s foot-shuffle, there was no pause before the delivery, which generated the game-winning run.

Was it a balk call that was forced?

Quandt: “Absolutely.

“I have done that before, stealing home and a lot of times it does draw a balk and the pitcher panics and steps off in a way that they’re not supposed to, run scores. It works out, that’s what we’re kind of shooting for.”

However it happened, the balk gave the Rainbow Warriors’ their fourth walk-off win of the season.

“It was pretty crazy, I kind of knew it once I got in I was like ‘yeah, we’re probably going to win this game.’ This is kind of what we do with the Manoa Magic,” said Vergel de Dios.

While the balk call was the deciding play, Hill said: “there’s a lot of heroes tonight.”

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Isaiah Magdaleno was lights out as the third pitcher out of the bullpen, pitching a season-high seven innings of shutout ball. He faced just two batters over the minimum and had a hand in three of the Rainbow Warriors’ eleven total strikeouts.

Prior to Magdaleno’s pitching appearance, Cory Ronan faced the minimum six batters and scattered four strikeouts in two innings of work.

Hawaii was held without a run until the bottom of the seventh with a two-out rally that started with Jordan Donahue’s single through the right side. After Donahue stole second, Aidan Kuni’s pinch hit up the middle scored Donahue to tie the game at 1-all heading into the eighth.