Baseball ’Bows close series with loss to Gauchos
UC Santa Barbara averted a sweep with Sunday’s 5-1 baseball victory over Hawaii at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium in Santa Barbara, Calif. The Gauchos had won 11 home games in a row before falling to the Rainbow Warriors 2-1 on Friday and 3-0 on Saturday. By winning the finale of Big West series, the Gauchos improved to 15-6 overall and 5-4 in league play.
The ’Bows dropped to 12-10 and 3-6. Despite winning a Big West series for the first time this season, UH head coach Rich Hill said the goal was to do better than to claim two of three. In the post-game meeting, Hill told his players: “You’re going to get a lot of praise for the weekend, for everything, but we’re not here to win more games than we lose.
” Against one of the league’s most effective pitching staffs, the ’Bows cobbled six runs and hit . 176 during the series. They were able to bring home only one of the seven runners in scoring position.
“We can’t be satisfied with the process it takes to score runs and to keep teams from scoring runs,” Hill said in a telephone interview. “We’re going to continue to hammer the process of what it takes to be a champion and not look at the scoreboard or the standings and absolutely get after it with relentless pursuit of improvement. ” For the 22nd time in as many games, Hill submitted a different starting lineup.
In his best performance since excelling during exhibitions in Japan the past November, third baseman Tate Shimao had three hits and reached base in all four plate appearances. “That was the Tate Shimao we saw in Japan,” Hill said. “That’s a double down the left-field line, a double down the right-field line, putting the ball in play, playing good defense.
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