RAINBOW BASEBALL
Hawaii gets rid of 'expensive' baseball tourney
The Hawaii baseball team's schedule for 2007 features the return of several prominent names, and will be without a familiar feature.
The Rainbows -- coming off their first appearance in the NCAA Regionals in 13 years -- open the schedule in late January against Santa Clara. They'll host Wichita State and Arizona prior to the Western Athletic Conference season, play an early-season series on the road for the second straight year and resume a rivalry with Arizona State.
2007 HAWAII BASEBALL SCHEDULE
JANUARY
26-28--Santa Clara.
FEBRUARY
1-3--Georgia Southern. 9-11--Pacific. 16-18--at UC Santa Barbara. 23-25--Wichita State.
MARCH
1-4--Chicago State. 9-11--Arizona. 16-18--Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 23-25--Nevada. 30-31--San Jose State.
APRIL
1--San Jose State. 6-8--at Sacramento State. 10--at Pacific. 13-15--at Fresno State. 20-22--Louisiana Tech. 25--at Arizona State. 27-29--at New Mexico State.
MAY
3-5--at UH-Hilo. 12-14--at Nevada. 19-20--Fresno State. 24-28--WAC tournament, Reno, Nev.
JUNE
1-4--NCAA Regionals. 8-11--NCAA Super Regionals. 15-24--College World Series, Omaha, Neb.
All home games at Les Murakami Stadium
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And for the first time since 1982, the team will not host its annual tournament.
UH coach Mike Trapasso said the event -- known as the Rainbow Easter Tournament before becoming simply the Rainbow Tournament in recent years -- may be brought back in the future. But the costs involved in assembling the field made it difficult to continue this season.
"It's just gotten to where it's very expensive," Trapasso said.
"Last year's tournament was such a disaster with the weather and being in the middle of that rain, the idea of taking a year off sounded pretty good. And it just hasn't been cost-productive the last few years because the guarantees that we have to give out to get people to come over here continues to rise because of just the cost of travel now."
UH begins the 2007 season on Jan. 26 against Santa Clara and has series against Georgia Southern and Pacific before heading to the mainland for a three-game set at UC Santa Barbara.
The Rainbows return home to face perennial power Wichita State, Chicago State, Arizona and Wisconsin-Milwaukee before starting WAC play March 23-25 against Nevada.
With the seven-team conference playing an unbalanced schedule, Trapasso said the Rainbows drew a tough league slate.
"I think we've got the more challenging schedule the way it turns out in that we've got to go home-and-home with Fresno State and Nevada and play them each six times," Trapasso said.
The rest of UH's WAC schedule consists of three-game series against San Jose State and Louisiana Tech at home and Sacramento State and New Mexico State on the road.
UH plays a single game at Arizona State on April 25, with the Sun Devils scheduled to visit Les Murakami Stadium in 2008.
The Rainbows close the regular season by playing three games against defending WAC champion Fresno State in two days. Due to the Bulldogs' final exams, the teams begin the series with a doubleheader on May 19 at Murakami Stadium.
The WAC tournament will be held May 24-28 in Reno.
The Rainbows went 45-17 last season and reached the final round of the regional at Oregon State.
They'll have to replenish a starting rotation that lost WAC Pitcher of the Year Steven Wright and senior Justin Costi, and fill holes left by seniors Luis Avila, Robbie Wilder and Matt Inouye, who earned All-WAC honors.
Justin Frash, who hit a team-best .359 last season, leads the Rainbow returnees. Second baseman Jonathan Hee, shortstop Eli Christensen and pitcher Tyler Davis also return after earning All-WAC honors.
"We lost obviously some key players, but that's why you recruit and we're fortunate in that we've got a lot of guys back," Trapasso said. "We'll spend the fall seeing what we've got and spend the spring trying to build on what we did last year."