’Bows bring out the bats

Hawaii hammers San Jose State to capture WAC series

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SAN JOSE, Calif. » Derek DuPree and a revamped Rainbows offense punctuated Hawaii's longest baseball road trip of the season by taking three of four games against San Jose State.

HAWAII: 6 SAN JOSE ST.: 2 NEXT UP vs. New Mexico State on Thursday

DuPree finished off a tremendous weekend with three more hits and drove in two runs as Hawaii defeated San Jose State 6-2 yesterday at Municipal Stadium.

"Coming off last weekend, it really showed a lot of character for these kids to bounce back and play the way we have," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said.

The Rainbows were swept by Sacramento State a week ago, but bounced back with a win Tuesday at 13th-ranked Stanford after making wholesale lineup changes.

DuPree was the biggest beneficiary as he went 11-for-22 with five runs and two RBIs against the Spartans.

Alex Capaul battled through control issues to make it through five innings to pick up the win. Josh Schneider earned the save with four shutout innings in relief.

Hawaii begins an eight-game homestand Thursday with the first of four games against New Mexico State.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. » Hawaii returned to its hitting ways yesterday to win its first Western Athletic Conference baseball series of the season.

Alex Capaul and Josh Schneider combined on a four-hitter and the Rainbows pounded out 13 hits in a 6-2 victory over San Jose State yesterday in the series finale at Municipal Stadium.

The Rainbows (13-20, 5-7 WAC) finished their longest road trip of the season by winning four of their last five games, including three of four against the Spartans (15-13, 6-9).

"I don't think there's any doubt that was a big win for us," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "Now we have to continue playing the way we did the second half of the road trip."

A dominant performance by Spartans starter Ryan Shopshire Saturday night was the only blemish on the series for the 'Bows, who scored 28 runs and had 51 hits in their three victories.

Back-to-back RBI singles by Greg Garcia and Landon Hernandez gave Hawaii a 2-0 lead in the second inning. The Spartans cut the deficit to one in the bottom of the inning as Capaul walked three straight to force in a run after giving up a one-out single.

Capaul walked five in five innings, but only gave up two hits and one earned run to pick up his first win as a Rainbow.

"You have to give him credit for sticking it out for five innings," Trapasso said. "He struggled with his command, but was able to gut his way through it and give us five innings."

Derek DuPree's third hit of the game brought in Vinnie Catricala to put the Rainbows up 5-2 in the sixth. Josh Schneider took over for Capaul in the bottom of the inning and breezed through the rest of the game, retiring 12 of the 15 batters he faced to earn the save.

"It was (Schneider's) best outing of the year, I thought," Trapasso said. "If you look at the circumstances we were in, we were basically out of pitching and he came in and got the job done."

After losing to Portland 15-8 on March 1, the Rainbows went 17 consecutive games without scoring more than four runs, prompting Trapasso to mix things up in his lineup to try to jump-start his squad.

Senior Derek DuPree was benched for seven games before getting a start in the second game of the Sacramento State series. In his last six games batting second in the order, DuPree is hitting .452 with 14 hits and six runs.

"It really shows his maturity and competitiveness to go out and have the weekend he had after not playing for a two-week stretch," Trapasso said.

DuPree's 10-game hitting streak is the longest by a Rainbow this season and Jeff Van Doornum had two singles yesterday to extend his streak to nine.

First baseman Kevin Macdonald also had a big weekend with seven hits, five runs and five RBIs. He had a monster game in Friday's extra-inning win, going 4-for-6 and driving in three runs.

"Battling through that 15-inning game to get the win really boosted our guys to start thinking that they are playing and swinging well," Trapasso said.

The Rainbows pulled to within 3 1/2 games of WAC-leading Sacramento State. They will play their next eight games at home, beginning with New Mexico State on Thursday.

WAC standings

	W	L	PCT.		GB	W-L
Sacramento State	8	3	.727		--	13-15
Nevada	8	4	.667		1/2	17-13
Fresno State	5	3	.625		1 1/2	16-14
New Mexico State	4	4	.500		2 1/2	14-16
Hawaii	5	7	.416		3 1/2	13-20
San Jose State	6	9	.400		4	15-13
Louisiana Tech	2	8	.200		5 1/2	15-14

Yesterday

Hawaii 6, San Jose State 2

Nevada 11, New Mexico State 1

Today

No games scheduled

Hawaii 6, San Jose State 2

Hawaii	AB	R	H	BI	SJSU	AB	R	H	BI
Montplaisir lf	4	0	1	0	Bellows 3b	3	0	0	0
DuPree dh	5	1	3	2	Stienstra 1b	1	0	0	0
Hee ss	5	0	0	0	Shaffer ss	4	1	0	0
Haislet cf	4	1	2	0	Hertler 2b	3	0	0	0
Van Doornum rf	5	1	2	0	Valine dh	3	0	1	1
Roquemore rf	0	0	0	0	Garza 1b/3b	4	1	2	0
Macdonald 1b	3	0	1	1	Aguilera c	4	0	0	0
Catricala 3b	4	2	1	0	Martin cf	2	0	0	0
Garcia 2b	4	0	1	1	Sofranac lf	3	0	0	0
Morford 2b	1	0	0	0	Ellis rf	1	0	0	1
Hernandez c	4	1	2	1	Klauer ph	1	0	0	0
					Maehl rf	0	0	0	0
					Rahier ph	1	0	1	0
Totals	39	6	13	5	Totals	30	2	4	2

Hawaii	021	101	001	--	6	13	2
San Jose State	010	010	000	--	2	4	2

E--Garcia; Hernandez; Shaffer; Vander Tuig. DP--Hawaii 1; SJSU 1. LOB--Hawaii 11; SJSU 9. 2B--Rahier. HBP--Macdonald; Hertlere. SB--Haislet 2; Catricala. CS--DuPree; Van Doornum; Valine.

Hawaii	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Capaul (W, 1-3)	5	2	2	1	5	3
Schneider (S, 1)	4	2	0	0	2	1
San Jose State	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Sobczak (L, 2-1)	2 2/3	6	3	3	0	1
Snodgrass	3 1/3	5	2	1	1	2
Hennessey	1	1	0	0	1	0
Vander Tuig	2	1	1	0	2	1

HBP--by Sobczak (Macdonald); by Capaul (Hertler).

Umpires--Tom Chandler (Plate); Bill Speck (First); Larry Randall (Third).

T--2:51. A--322.