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Trapasso says
now is the time

NOW is the time. This is it, year four of the Mike Trapasso era. They've got to show us something. It's time for Hawaii baseball to make a mark. It's time to produce.

It's not just you saying that.

No, that's not even me saying that.

It's Trapasso saying it.

"It's finally a year where we feel like it's time for us to carry our weight," he says.

He lists UH football, softball, volleyball, basketball.

Time for Rainbow baseball to chime in with a run of its own.

It came close last year. All the old feelings came flooding back. The Rainbows took a series from Rice, which was then the defending national champs.

The ballpark reflected the change in May, in the season's final weeks. You could see it in the stands. It was incredible.

Everyone's eyes sparkled. Everybody believed.

People came out to the stadium who hadn't been to a UH game in a long, long time. They wanted to feel it again. Were ready to feel it again.

Not so fast, my friends.

"We ran into some depth problems," Trapasso says. You remember. Catcher Creighton Kahoalii ended his UH career by blowing out a knee sliding in for a triple that helped topple mighty Rice.

"I thought last year we were in a position to contend for postseason," Trapasso says. "But down the stretch the last couple weeks we really struggled and it ended all possibilities of that happening. And I think a lot of the reason for that was depth. We had a lot of injuries, we didn't handle them well. And we didn't get it done."

That's OK. Last season was the awakening. Last season was Cinderella. Last season was a year early. Last season was only year three.

Now?

"We're finally at the stage in our program where all the players are now players that we have recruited and brought in and are of the mindset that this is the time to make a statement and have a good year," Trapasso says.

He says the WAC will be the best he's seen. The schedule is "competitive, demanding, challenging." He says you're always unsure how your new guys will respond.

He picked Matt Inouye as preseason conference player of the year -- but the coaches' votes didn't even have Inouye as preseason All-WAC.

There are plenty of reasons to temper expectation.

The conference coaches rank his Rainbows where they finished last year, fourth, which is how it should be.

"It is what it is until we start playing and see what we have," he says. So UH has to prove it. That's fine.

It's time.