Trio of Hawai’i hurlers shut down UC Irvine to secure rare series win over Anteaters

HONOLULU – What a great time to get off a cold spell.

Behind another brilliant Hekili Robello start and the hot bats of corner infielders Josh Martin and Tate Shimao, the University of Hawai’i (18-13, 8-9 Big West) took down UC Irvine (15-19, 6-8 Big West) again on Saturday night with a 3-0 victory over the Anteaters inside Les Murakami Stadium.

Robello (W, 6-2) turned in his seventh start of 6+ innings this season, twirling a full scoreless 6.0 frames while only allowing two hits and striking out seven UCI batters before handing the ball over to fellow RHP John Alkire II.

Alkire II took the seventh inning, giving up a hit and walking another UCI batter to work into some trouble before escaping with a strikeout of the looking variety. Freshman RHP Brody Martin-Grudzielanek took the final two innings, tallying three strikeouts while picking up his first collegiate save.

Coming into the weekend, Hawai’i hadn’t won a series against UC Irvine in eight years and had lost nine straight games against the Anteaters.

With a 14-6 victory from Friday night in the back pocket, the Rainbow Warriors looked to secure a crucial series victory over the Anteaters as the two teams tussle in the Big West standings for one of the five postseason tournament spots available and turned to one of the two major aces on staff in Robello.

Hawai’i helped its starter by giving the hard-throwing righty an early lead after Shimao reached with a two-out walk, advanced to third on a double from Martin and scored on a wild pitch by UCI starter Finnigan Wall (L, 3-2).

Shimao reached again in the bottom of the third inning with a base hit and moved from first to third on a single to right field by Martin. Similar to the opening frame, the UH third baseman came home on another Wall wild pitch to make it a 2-0 lead for the hosts after three innings.

Robello continued to cruise, only allowing three more batters to reach base and none to advance past first until he gave the ball off to Alkire II in the top of the seventh.

After Alkire worked through a minor scare in the top half of the seventh, Hawai’i tacked on another insurance run in the bottom half as Evan Rolbiecki ripped an RBI single to left that scored Josh Martin and made it a 3-0 game.

Brody Martin-Grudzielanek got his first taste of closing out a close game for the Rainbow Warriors, making his ninth appearance of the season and fifth in relief. The freshman showed off his strikeout stuff in an impressive two innings of work, collecting three backwards Ks while retiring the final six batters he faced for the save.

Josh Martin continued a scorching hot three-week stretch with a 3-for-4 performance at the plate with a double and a run scored. The junior first baseman is 9-for-21 over his last six games for the Rainbow Warriors with a pair of doubles, three runs scored and three more batted in.

Tate Shimao bumped his average up to .296 on the season after another two-hit performance, going 2-for-4 at the plate while scoring two runs for Hawai’i. The Cal Poly transfer has gone 12-for-28 over the past seven games for UH, scoring six runs and collecting five RBI in that same span for an offense finally beginning to awaken.

UC Irvine mustered just four hits against the trio of Rainbow Warrior hurlers, striking out 11 times while failing to record an extra base hit all game for just the fifth time this season.

With the victory, Hawai’i moved within 0.5 games of CSUN for the fifth and final spot in the conference standings that would qualify for the Big West Championship in late May.

The Rainbow Warriors and Anteaters will look to wrap up the three-game set on Sunday, April 12 with first pitch scheduled for 1:05 p.m. HT/ 4:05 p.m. PT.