Zimny walks off with Hawaii win

Evan Zimny was on the Hawaii bench a few games ago.

Last night his teammates mobbed him at home plate after a walk-off homer to beat Nevada 5-3 in the Western Athletic Conference opener for both teams.

UH season-ticket requests higher Requests for new season tickets for the upcoming Hawaii football season have eclipsed last year's new season-ticket sales by 256, according to a release from UH yesterday. UH's new deposit program, launched Monday, had received $50 non-refundable deposits from 475 individuals requesting 1,745 new season tickets. UH sold 1,489 new season tickets during the entire sales period prior to last season. New season-tickets sales did not begin until late June last year. Season-ticket renewals also began last Monday. Renewals and deposits have been made despite the lack of a complete schedule. The Warriors have six home games scheduled. One more will be "announced at a later date" according to the release from the school. "It's amazing, isn't it, in the middle of all of this? As long as they know when the home games are, there's no issue," UH athletic director Herman Frazier said. Renewals and deposits for new season tickets can be paid for at the Stan Sheriff Center box office and online at HawaiiAthletics.com.

"That's as good as it gets," said Zimny, after his drive over the right-field fence at Les Murakami Stadium gave UH (20-8) the win after it trailed the entire way.

Zimny's first UH career homer came off Wolf Pack reliever Kody Keroher, but made a hard-luck loser of Ryan Rodriguez (3-4) as a crowd of 1,678 watched.

The stellar relief pitching of Rainbow righties Matt Daly and Jayson Kramer kept Hawaii in the game. They each pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings, and they each struck out four Nevada batters.

"As a pitching staff, we've been building on picking each other up," Daly said.

Kramer (3-0) picked up the win as UH got its fifth victory in a row and 11th in 13 games this month.

"What a crazy finish," Kramer said. "Anytime you can win with a walk-off homer it's real exciting, especially since this is the WAC opener. I always know our offense can turn it up when they need to."

The Rainbows were out-hit 9-6, but were better able to capitalize on mistakes than the Wolf Pack (14-13).

Zimny came out of a slump that had him out of the starting lineup four games last weekend. He whacked a school-record-tying three doubles in Sunday's win against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

"He's been through a lot," UH coach Mike Trapasso said. "Maybe this will get him going and jump-start our team. He's been getting good swings lately."

UH entered the ninth inning trailing 3-1. Brandon Haislet's single drove in Justin Frash, who reached on a two-base error by center fielder Jason Sadoian to start the inning.

Kris Sanchez grounded to short, forcing Haislet at second for the first out.

Eli Christensen walked on four pitches, ending the night for Rodriguez after 118 pitches. Keroher went to 0-2 on Zimny, who then took a ball and fouled one off before hitting a slider that barely stayed fair 330 feet from home plate.

"I was hoping it would stay fair; it looked like it was curving," Zimny said. "I don't remember ever hitting (a game-ending homer) ever before."

As for UH, Trapasso couldn't remember any Rainbow hitting one to end a game during his six-year tenure.

Nevada took a 2-0 lead in the first. Dan Eastham doubled to right, driving in two runs. UH starter Ian Harrington hit Sadoian with a pitch and Terry Walsh singled ahead of Eastham.

Sadoian walked to start the third and moved to third on Jason Rodriguez's hit-and-run single. UH catcher Landon Hernandez picked off Rodriguez when he strayed too far off base on a missed bunt by Konrad Schmidt.

"We didn't execute on offense and we didn't execute on defense and it put them in position to do what they did today," Nevada coach Gary Powers said. "We made some bad base-running mistakes and we made some ridiculous plays on defense."