WAIPAHU, O'ahu, Hawai'i – The Chaminade University baseball team opened the first of their four games against in-city rival Hawai'i Pacific University on Tuesday with an 11-7 loss at Hans L'Orange Field.
Chris Mata (Wailuku, Maui, Hawai'i/South Mountain CC/Maui HS) homered twice and totaled three hits to extend his hitting streak to 13 straight He also becoming just the second Silversword with a multi-homer game (
Safea Villaruz-Mauai did it twice last season).
The Silverswords fell to 7-23 overall and 5-19 in the PacWest while the Sharks improved to 12-13 and 10-10 in the conference. HPU was playing just its fourth game in the past 16 days after the double Kona Low storm systems wiped out its entire Westmont series and one of its four games against Menlo last week.
Playing on natural grass for the first time since March 8, the 'Swords were stunned early, allowing seven runs in the first inning. The pitching seemed to stabilize in subsequent innings, thanks to reliever
Tyler Geivet (Aliso Viejo, Calif./Aliso Niguel) who allowed just one run over the next five frames.
CUH finally got on the scorebook in the third on Mata's first career home run, a two-run blast.
The junior transfer wasn't done playing long ball, planting his second jack of the game over the left field fence to open the fifth. Three batters later,
Cameron Breeze (Temecula, Calif./San Diego City College/Paloma Valley HS) brought in
Cade Fujii (Kapolei, O'ahu, Hawai'i/Porterville College/Kapolei HS) on a sacrifice fly, cutting the deficit in half to 8-4.
The Sharks would then find their bats again and tacked on three runs in the seventh.
Chaminade made a little noise late with an RBI double from
Alex Hamada (Aliso Niguel, Calif./Aliso Niguel) in the eighth then
Bode Poler's (Montesano, Wash./Gonzaga University/Montesano HS) bases-loaded walk followed by Hamada's sacrifice fly in the ninth which rounded out the scoring.
Trysten Mooney (Helena, Mont./Wenatchee Valley College/Capital HS) and Hamada led CUH with three hits with all three of Mata's RBIs coming via long ball.
Holden Hungerford (Downey, Calif./Cerritos College/Warren HS) was charged with the loss while Jayden Gabrillo got the win. All nine HPU batters in the starting lineup card got at least one hit.
The two teams will next get together on the diamond with a doubleheader on Monday, April 6 at Hans L'Orange for Games 2 and 3 of the series.
The Silverswords are back at Hans this weekend, this time as the home team, when they open a four-game series against Fresno Pacific University with a single game on Friday. First pitch is at 5:30 p.m.
