Eliminated!!

Postseason comes to an end for both the Rainbow Wahine and Rainbows

Both the University of Hawaii baseball and softball teams needed a pair of miracles yesterday to keep their respective campaigns alive in postseason play. Neither team got one.

The UH softball team lost the opener of the NCAA softball Super Regional to host Tennessee on Friday, but rallied yesterday to win the second meeting 9-6 to force a decisive Game 3. The winner headed to the Women's College World Series. The loser went home.

Tennessee (59-6) rallied from one run down to eventually take a 7-1 victory behind the strong arm of senior All-American Monica Abbott to advance to the softball world series for the third consecutive year. Abbott raised her season record to 46-4.

Sophomore pitcher Courtney Baughman was tagged with the loss for the Wahine, who ended their season at 50-13. Tennessee rallied for three runs in the fourth and three more in the fifth to seal the deal for the Southeastern Conference regular-season champions.

The Hawaii baseball team faced a similar situation yesterday in Reno, Nev., against the host Nevada Wolf Pack. On Friday, the Rainbows (34-25) stayed alive in the double-elimination WAC tournament by beating Sacramento State by a dozen runs after losing their opener to Nevada on Thursday.

It's too bad they didn't save a few of those for the Wolf Pack, who knocked off Hawaii 8-6 in 11 innings to end the Rainbows' season on a down note. Hawaii trailed 6-0 early, but rallied to tie it in the ninth on a two-run homer by Landon Hernandez. Nevada was able to push across a pair of runs in the top of the 11th. Hawaii had men on first and second with one out, but Derek DuPree hit into a game-ending double play.

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Season's end for Rainbow baseball team

RENO, Nev. » All over Nevada, happy customers regularly fill gut-shot straights to suck out the pot and build four-card 21s to beat the dealer's 20.

People beat the odds every day. But the odds are the odds, and Hawaii's attempt to win the Western Athletic Conference tournament from the loser's bracket ended with another loss to the house.

This one was heart-breaking, as the Rainbows came back from a 6-0 deficit to tie Nevada in the ninth on Landon Hernandez's two-run homer, only to fall 8-6 in 11 innings.

And with tomorrow being Memorial Day, the Rainbows can't get out of town just yet.

"We can't fly out until Tuesday. We have to sit around here another couple of days after being eliminated," UH coach Mike Trapasso said.

The main reasons for the Rainbows' loss are nothing new.

"It was our Achilles' heel throughout the last month of the season," the coach said. "It came up again today. Starting pitching, and then being able to close things out."

UH could not keep the momentum after Hernandez's homer, and the Wolf Pack eventually pushed two runs across, with Tyler Davis and Nick Rhodes allowing RBI singles to Chris Siewert and Jason Rodriguez.

"A loss is a loss. If you don't get it done, you don't get it done," said Hernandez, who homered for the second game in a row and finished with four for the season.

The Rainbows fell to 34-25 and will not repeat last year's trip to the NCAA Regionals, as Nevada beat Hawaii for the fifth time in a row, all at Peccole Park in Reno.

At least this time the Rainbows -- who were KO'd by the Pack 11-1 in seven innings on Thursday -- fought back. But it wasn't enough, as UH also fell victim to key base-running and fielding miscues.

Derek DuPree, Matt Roquemore, Eli Christensen and Justin Frash started the sixth inning with singles. After Kris Sanchez walked, Kevin Macdonald and Brandon Haislet also singled. The four-run rally could've been even bigger if Roquemore hadn't been nabbed between second and third when DuPree was held at third on Christensen's single.

"Most of our base-running mistakes are getting picked off and bad reads on dirt balls," Trapasso said. "I think that was 80 percent of our base-running mistakes this year. Roquemore (was) just running with his head down. That's a mental mistake and it cost us."

Nevada opened the scoring with three runs in the third, thanks to third baseman Frash's bad throw on a slow roller by David Ciarlo. Frash appeared to have Baker Krukow out at home, but elected to throw to first. The throw was wild, allowing Terry Walsh to follow Krukow home. Ciarlo got to third and scored on Siewert's sacrifice fly.

"(Frash) absolutely had a play," Trapasso said. "Obviously it was a big play in the game. It's not what lost us the game. It's one play. Obviously it got the momentum on Nevada's side. Early in the game you can concede a run and it's fine if you're not 100 percent you're going to get the guy out."

Terry Walsh hit a two-out, two-run single up the middle for a 5-0 lead in the third. That had Trapasso calling for Jayson Kramer to replace starter Matt Daly.

Kramer went 7 1/3 innings, yielding just five hits and two runs -- allowing Hawaii to get back in the game in the process.

Walsh struck again in the fifth with a triple to score Krukow for a 6-0 lead.

Hernandez hit his homer off Nevada reliever Matt Renfree, who went 4 2/3 innings and got the win. The only other trouble Renfree got in was in the bottom of the 11th, when Jorge Franco and Hernandez hit back-to-back singles with one out. But DuPree grounded into a double play to end the game, and Hawaii's season.

"As a team we were battling back," Hernandez said. "I credit the team for that home run, because hitting's contagious."