HONOLULU — The turf was pristine, and the start was just about perfect for the Chaminade baseball team at a place it had not known defeat.
“Oh, man, I was hoping that we would continue that,” Silverswords coach Chad Konishi said of his Division II team’s four-run first inning against Division I host Hawaii.
It was not to be, however, as the Rainbow Warriors’ combination of bats and arms proved too much in a 9-4 UH victory at Les Murakami Stadium on Tuesday night.
[Note: See below for more photos of Chaminade-Hawaii baseball.]
Eight pitchers kept CUH off the board over the last eight innings as UH (12-4 overall) responded from consecutive losses at UC Riverside ahead of its series with No. 15 UC Santa Barbara, the preseason Big West favorite, this weekend.
“I knew it would be an uphill battle, because I think their pitching staff is super deep, and he (Rich Hill) can run out guys that we don't see at our level over nine innings,” said Konishi, the second-year program leader who has led Chaminade’s resurrection in the sport from the early 1980s. “We may see it over four, and then it just peters out for us at our level. But those are some good arms; we ran into some balls (early).”
Jake Harper led off the game with a single off Kaysen Raineri and after two quick outs, Hill intentionally walked former UH slugger Safea Villaruz-Mauai. But Alex Greb followed by an unintentional pass and Cade Fujii got the scoring started with an RBI single up the middle and Hill pulled Raineri. Jackson Dorn then smacked a bases-clearing double off Dylan Waite, with all three runs charged to Raineri.
Shunsuke Sakaino started the Rainbows’ offensive surge with a solo shot to right in the bottom of the first.
UH tacked on four more in the bottom of the second to take a 6-4 lead and scored once in the third, fourth and fifth.
Sakaino went 3-for-4 to boost his batting average to .435, Elijah Ickes went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and Draven Nushida drove in a pair. Waite (2-0) picked up the win going 1 1/3 innings while Brayden Wells (0-1) took the loss with six runs charged in one-plus innings of work.
Chaminade (8-13), which beat Wichita State at the Les following the Shockers’ four-game series against UH, dropped to 3-1 at the ballpark this season. The Silverswords have eight home dates there against PacWest competition, plus another meeting with UH at the Les on April 22.
First, however, CUH must play 16 straight road games, starting with back-to-back doubleheaders at Menlo in Atherton, Calif., on Friday and Saturday.
Konishi feels good about the team’s progress after a 15-33 (8-22 PacWest) campaign in 2024. The ‘Swords dropped all four games to No. 16 Westmont College, the program Konishi feels is best in the league in late February but led at one point in each game.
“I’m not looking for pats on the back or anything, but I think it demonstrates how far we have come in a year’s time,” Konishi said.
“I keep telling these kids, you guys are better than you maybe think. And I keep trying to tell them, nobody cares about us. We just got to care about ourselves.”
Getting more games at the refurbished Hans L’Orange Park remains a program priority, but for the next season-plus the Silverswords will play a patchwork home schedule of games at Central Oahu Regional Park, Hans and the Les. Konishi said he remains grateful to Hill and LMS manager Glenn Nakaya for the dates they can provide.
“It plays so different than what CORP does, or even Hans,” Konishi said.
Konishi, who was present with Mike Trapasso’s staff in the early 2000s, has now seen three generations of surfaces at LMS — the old Astroturf and the DomoTurf that was installed in 2008.
“This is really nice, really nice. A job well done,” Konishi said of the new turf. “And with the new padding behind home plate and everything else, it's all what it's made out to be.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.
