HONOLULU – Rutgers baseball (12-3) scored first, but Hawaii (6-10) matched and tacked on in the middle innings to take a 13-7 win in the weekend finale Sunday at Les Murakami Stadium. The Scarlet Knights settle for a split of the four-game series after claiming both ends of the Saturday doubleheader.
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"Coming out here to split, I don't think that's a bad weekend," head coach
Steve Owens said. "We had chances to win on Friday and I thought we had a pretty good chance today, but didn't control the count, throw first-pitch strikes and walked too many. That makes it tough, especially on a field like this. I think some fatigue set in late in the game on defense. On offense, we scored five runs from the sixth inning on, we're never out of a game. In general, I'm disappointed that nobody on the pitching staff could stop it, it snowballed on us."
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Joshua Kuroda-Grauer went 3-for-4 with two RBIs to highlight the 12-hit attack. The second baseman finished the series with six hits, as
Mike Nyisztor posted two on Sunday to total seven against the Rainbow Warriors and has been on base in each of the last 11 games.
Tony Santa Maria came off the bench and smacked two singles.
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RU used nine pitchers in the game, with
Sam Portnoy,
Jayson Hoopes,
Joe Mazza and
Matt Rowe allowing no earned runs.
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Hawaii scored two runs in the third to take a 4-2 lead and never trailed from there. Rutgers cut it to 7-5 in the sixth, but the Rainbow Warriors responded with five in the bottom half to pull away.
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- T1 | The Scarlet Knights scored in the first inning for the eighth time this season in pushing one across. Nyisztor led off with a single, advanced on a balk and took third on a fielder's choice. Next up, Nick Cimillo ripped an RBI single through the left side to extend his hitting streak to nine games.
- B1 | Hawaii matched the run with a single, walk, sacrifice bunt and RBI fielder's choice.
- B2 | An RBI single with two outs by Aaron Ujimori put the Rainbow Warriors ahead.
- T3 | RU posted one to tie the game at two when Jordan Sweeney, Nyisztor and Richie Schiekofer all singled, with a double play allowing Sweeney to cross.
- B3 | Hawaii retook the lead with two runs to make it 4-2. A suicide squeeze plated one and a two-out RBI single by Cole Cabrera added another.
- B5 | The home team picked up three runs to build a 7-2 lead.
- T6 | The Scarlet Knights chipped into the deficit with three runs. Cimillo walked, Ryan Lasko singled, Chris Brito singled and Santa Maria notched a two-run single off the bench. Kuroda-Grauer followed with an RBI single to make it 7-5.
- B6 | The Rainbow Warriors sent 11 batters to plate with five hits to score five runs.
- T8 | Chris Brito reached on an error, Santa Maria collected a single and Kuroda-Grauer lined an RBI double. Garrett Callaghan then registered a run-scoring groundout.
- B8 | Hawaii took advantage of an error to tally an unearned run.
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The Scarlet Knights fly back to the mainland to continue spring break with a stop in Nebraska. The three-game series at Omaha begins Friday at 7 p.m. ET.
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