GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Long Beach State's Shane Peterson stole third base as Hawaii's Vinnie Catricala awaited the late throw last night.
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Rainbows bagged
The Rainbows take the Dirtbags to extra innings but fall short to open the series
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Shane Peterson doubled home Ted Lemasters with two outs in the top of the 12th inning to give Long Beach State a 4-3 victory over Hawaii last night at Les Murakami Stadium.
The Dirtbags (7-2) improved to 3-0 in extra-inning games this season and handed Hawaii (5-7) its fourth consecutive loss in heartbreaking fashion.
LBSU: 4
HAWAII: 3
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vs. LBSU today
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Vinnie Catricala blasted a solo homer to left-center in the fourth inning and Hawaii added two more runs in the sixth on a two-run double by Brandon Haislet to take a 3-0 lead.
The score stayed that way until the eighth when the Dirtbags began their rally.
Back-to-back hits chased Hawaii starter Jason Alexander, who gave up three runs in seven innings while striking out six and walking six. Jayson Kramer came on and struck out two batters before giving up an RBI single.
After hitting the next batter, he was replaced by Matt Daly, who surrendered a two-run pinch-hit single to John Hill that tied it at 3.
Daly gave up three runs in 4 1/3 innings to fall to 2-1 for the season.
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GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaii's Vinnie Catricala was greeted at home plate after hitting a solo home run in the fourth.
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One of the many lessons a young Hawaii baseball team is going to have to learn quickly is how to close out games it's supposed to win.
Shane Peterson's two-out double in the top of 12th inning scored Ted Lemasters with the game-winning run as No. 10 Long Beach State fought back from a 3-0 deficit in the eighth inning to defeat Hawaii 4-3 in 12 innings last night in front of a Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 1,674.
Hawaii's last effort to tie the score came from two players making their season debuts. Pinch-hitter Ryan Asato singled up the middle in his first at-bat of the season with two outs. Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso then went with junior Alex Myers to pinch-hit as the go-ahead run. Myers got ahead of the count 2-1 before grounding to second to end the game.
"When you're in a dogfight with a top-10 team like (Long Beach State), you've got to roll the dice sometimes," Trapasso said. "It didn't happen for us tonight, but if we go out and play the same way tomorrow we'll be in for some good baseball."
Vinnie Catricala stopped Long Beach State starter Andrew Liebel's streak of consecutive innings without allowing an earned run at 19 with a towering solo home run over the fence in left-center in the fourth. Brandon Haislet drove in two more runs with a double in the sixth and the Rainbows had control of the game with a 3-0 lead going into the eighth.
The only problem Hawaii starter Jared Alexander ran into over the first seven innings was a ground ball in the fifth that deflected off his pitching hand. A finger immediately swelled up to "almost twice its size" according to Trapasso, but he stayed in the game and allowed just one hit and no runs through seven innings.
He was chased after allowing a leadoff single to TJ Mittelstaedt and a double to pinch-hitter Lemasters to open the eighth.
"Once he got himself into trouble, I wanted to take him out because he pitched so well and I didn't want him to start struggling and have a bad outing because of the finger," Trapasso said.
Jayson Kramer replaced Alexander with runners on second and third and recorded back-to-back strikeouts of Chris Nelson and Danny Espinosa. Peterson then smacked a single to left to score Mittelstaedt and Kramer hit pinch-hitter Devin Lohman to load the bases.
Matt Daly, who was scheduled to start tomorrow's game, replaced Kramer and gave up a two-run single to pinch-hitter John Hill. Lohman was thrown out at third on the play, but the three runs by the Dirtbags tied the score at 3.
"Daly just came in and was over-throwing and made a bad pitch and all of a sudden we have a tie game," Trapasso said.