UH hopes to take
success to the road
The Hawaii Rainbows left today on their next-to-last road trip of the season.
The trip begins with a nonconference game at Sacramento State tomorrow and concludes with three Western Athletic Conference games at Nevada this weekend.
Left-hander Justin Cayetano gets the start against the Hornets (28-19), who have won 12 of their last 16 games. However, they lost a wind-aided slugfest to Arizona yesterday, 21-13. Their top two hitters are Mikela Olsen (.408) and Jesse Schmidt (.406).
UH coach Mike Trapasso wants Cayetano and Nick Ponomarenko to get two or three innings of work tomorrow, then finish with bullpen members pitching an inning apiece.
The Rainbows (25-20, 7-14 WAC) start the series with Nevada (23-19, 12-5 WAC) Friday at Peccole Park.
"Peccole Park is not small. It's just that the ball flies out of there. It's a hitters ballpark," said Trapasso. "It definitely depends on the weather. You can have a pop to short that carries all the way to the wall, but it's the same for both teams."
The Wolf Pack, picked along with UH to finish fourth in the league in the preseason poll, will try to solidify their hold on second place entering the last month of the season. They have won the last eight games against Hawaii.
"When we played them here, I didn't get a good handle on what type of club they had because we were feeling sorry for ourselves following the Rice series," said Trapasso. "I've got to think their team has changed quite a bit (from last year) because of the way they are playing. It starts with defense and their freshman shortstop (Robert Marcial).
"They are playing with a lot of confidence and believe in themselves. You have to give Gary Powers (Nevada coach) his due. He has done a great job there."
The Rainbows also have played with confidence recently after struggling for a month. They have won eight of their last 11 games, vacated the WAC cellar and are close to reaching the goal of at least a .500 season.
"Our guys know they are playing better," Trapasso said. "Even when we struggled, they never quit working. They came out and won seven straight, took two series and I think it's a pretty good accomplishment for them to bounce back like that."
Trapasso will go with the same starting rotation. Ricky Bauer starts Friday's game and will be matched against Rainbow nemeses Mateo Miramontes. Chris George has Saturday's assignment and Keahi Rawlins goes Sunday.
Rawlins has the week to correct a problem that bothered him last Sunday. He bent his back knee too much, which causes him to drag his back foot. This affects his release point, causes him to lose some velocity and, more importantly, command of his pitches.
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