Veteran head coach Les Murakami was the last person off the Delta flight from Los Angeles yesterday. His team had just been swept at Fresno State the day before to finish 1996 with a seven-game losing streak.
But despite the wear and tear of another disappointing season, Murakami managed a bemused smile when asked what went wrong.
"I'm not sure what happened to us the past two weeks," Murakami said. "Maybe we just got tired. We seemed to always be a second late or two steps away from where we needed to be.
"Maybe those disappointing losses at San Diego State took it out of us a couple of weeks ago. Up to that point, I was pleased with the way we were playing.
"We came out of the Easter Tournament in good shape. We even did a good job against (Cal State) Northridge, but the last two weekends we were kind of blah."
The Rainbows were swept at home by Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, then on the road at Fresno State to finish 29-26 for the season and 12-18 in Western Athletic Conference play.
For the third consecutive season, the Rainbows placed in the second tier of the West Division standings. They haven't been to an NCAA Regional in three years.
"We had a strange mix of fifth-year seniors and young guys," Murakami said. "All those guys we lost last year would have been sophomores this year, and it hurt us, especially in our pitching."
The loss of Ryan Sheets, Chad Wanders and Andrew McNally from the 1995 team depleted an already thin pitching staff. Jay Spurgeon didn't develop as quickly as the coaches hoped, and true freshmen Randon Ho and Troy Yoshimasu weren't ready for the rigors of Division I baseball.
Ace Mark Johnson also struggled this season to a 6-5 record and ERA of 4.60. Despite being one of the most level-headed players on the team, Murakami felt the outside pressures got to him.
"Mark had people calling him wherever we would go," Murakami said. "He had the pressure of pitching well, not only for our team, but for the scouts and the U.S. Olympic guys, too."
Paul Ah Yat tried to pick up the slack. The senior finished 10-6 with an ERA of 4.66. He often came back to pitch well after a tough defeat the game before.
Junior Robby Robinson pitched better over the last half of the season, but still had a disappointing record of 4-8 and ERA of 6.08.
"We've got four good pitching prospects coming in next year," UH pitching coach Carl Furutani said. "We may lose one guy to the draft, but hopefully, he'll be with us next year.
"You take a risk signing guys like that, but we need to go after top players in high school to improve our team. There's a lot of competition out there."
Especially from the California schools, which have an easier time getting top junior college prospects into their programs due to less stringent transfer rules.
The Rainbows do have some talented position players returning in true freshmen Greg Millichap, Darren Blakely and Kenn Wakakuwa.
But they also lose seniors Chris Garnett at first, Jody Napuunoa at second and Jaime Ahu at shortstop. Junior Robert Medeiros won't return to third base, so the infield will be entirely new.
"We've recruited three position players, who we think can help us," Murakami said. "We also have guys like Michael Dartt, Key Voshell and Lars Hansen coming back."
Look for Neal Honma, who won the team batting title this year with a .359 average, to replace Jason Ross in the outfield.
Even though Ross has a year of eligibility remaining, he will likely be selected anywhere between the seventh and 15th rounds in next month's major-league draft.
Furutani said Johnson will definitely be picked in the first round. He believes Johnson will go anywhere from the 13th to the 20th player chosen overall.
If that's the case, Johnson's signing bonus will be about $1 million. He finished with 132 strikeouts this season, good enough for sixth on the all-time UH list.
"We're going to miss Mark, no question," Murakami said. "But I think we have a chance to be a pretty good team next year. The experience for all our young guys should help.
"I also feel Robby and Spurgeon will be improved. We were disappointed in how we finished, but overall, I thought we played OK.
"We also played a lot of tough teams this year, not only in nonconference, but league games, too. That's the way we like it. But hopefully, we can finish stronger than we did this year."