Vinnie Catricala's walk-off homer Friday night carried over to yesterday as the Hawaii offense broke out in style against Mississippi State.

A Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 1,172 saw the Rainbows vent weeks of frustration at the plate by putting up a 10-spot in the fifth inning of a 10-5 win over the Bulldogs.

Hawaii (5-6) entered the game hitting .214 as a team and left six runners on base in the first four innings.

But everything came together in the fifth as the Rainbows sent 15 batters to the plate, finishing with nine hits, two walks and two hit batters.

“;We're a good offensive club, and it's been frustrating the first 10 games because we weren't swinging well,”; Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. “;We broke out in a big way and now, obviously, the objective is to continue to get hits and score runs the rest of the way.”;

Catricala, who won the game Friday night with a three-run homer in the ninth off the top of the wall in left, chased starter Forrest Moore in the fifth with a two-run double that scored Greg Garcia and Kolten Wong to start the scoring fest.

Justin Bussey, who took the loss to drop to 1-1, replaced Moore and immediately walked Kevin Macdonald and hit Shane Hoey with a pitch to load the bases. Jeff Van Doornum, who was hitting .184 at that point, then stroked a two-run single to tie it at 4.

Hoey was thrown out at third on the play, but Landon Hernandez followed with a single and Josh Chevalier drove in Van Doornum with a basehit to take the lead.

After a Chase Koissian strikeout, Garcia singled for the second time in the inning to load the bases. Wong stroked a two-run single and Macdonald followed Catricala, who was hit by a pitch, with a bases-clearing double to cap the scoring.

The 10 runs fell two short of the UH record of 12 in an inning, set against Murray State in 1985.

“;That's not our motto,”; Macdonald said. “;Usually we try to score one run every inning. No team is looking to go for 10 runs in an inning, but sometimes you get lucky and we went up there and put up some good hacks.”;

UH senior Jared Alexander matched his first start of the season with another four innings of shutout baseball. Twice, the Bulldogs put runners on second base with one out, but Alexander got out of both situations, finishing with two hits allowed, no walks and five strikeouts on 57 pitches.

“;Next to the bats breaking loose, the most encouraging thing was Jared's performance,”; Trapasso said. “;He was just as effective and just as sharp as he was in Minnesota.

“;Next time we'll be able to boost him up to 75 (pitches) and see if we can get him going six, seven, eight innings.”;

Harrison Kuroda came on in the fifth and issued a walk and two hit batters before Luke Adkins smashed a grand slam to right-center field to put the Bulldogs (8-3) up 4-0. But the Rainbows answered with the 10 runs in the bottom of the inning that lasted more than an hour.

“;After they got four, we got 10 and that was big to watch them in that way and pick up Harry,”; Macdonald said.

Kuroda, who picked up the win to improve to 2-0 this season, came back out for the sixth and threw a 1-2-3 inning. Jason Nappi and Brent Brownlee chased the right-hander with back-to-back doubles in the seventh to pull to 10-5, but Connor Little came on and struck out six in 2 2/3 innings to finish the game.

“;As bad as Harry was, his zero in the sixth was huge after we came back to take the lead and get all the momentum,”; Trapasso said.

UH will look to even its record at .500 and win the series today at 1:05 p.m. Freshman Matt Sisto (1-1, 4.50) will start.