HONOLULU — The University of Hawaii softball team will wrap up its home schedule this weekend with a three-game Big West Conference series vs. Cal State Northridge at Rainbow Wahine Stadium.
The series opener is set for 6 p.m. Friday, followed by a doubleheader starting at 2 p.m. Saturday.
All three games will be televised live statewide on OCSports and broadcast live on NBC Sports Radio 1500 AM.
An autograph session will follow Friday’s game and Saturday will be “Military Appreciation Day” with the Rainbow Wahine wearing camouflage Under Armour jerseys with patches representing military units from Hawaii.
There also will be an appearance by the color guard from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and the COMPACFLT band, which will play the national anthem and “Hawaii Ponoi” as well as other music prior to the first game.
After the second game, UH seniors Jori Jasper, Sharla Kleibenstein, Kaile Nakao and Jazmine Zamora will be honored in the traditional “Senior Night” festivities.
The Rainbow Wahine (20-24 overall, 5-10 Big West) are coming off a two-games-to-one series loss at UC Santa Barbara. Hawaii split the first two games by identical 9-8 scores and lost the finale, 6-4, on Sunday. Saturday’s nine-inning, second-game victory snapped a seven-game losing streak for UH.
Junior first baseman Leisha Liilii continues to lead the team with a .400 batting average including 50 hits, 14 home runs and 27 walks. That ranks her third in the Big West in batting average and second in home runs and walks.
Sophomore right fielder Keiki Carlos is second on the team in batting (.313) with a team-high 33 runs scored, and second baseman Zamora is hitting .309 with 23 runs.
Sophomore Loie Kesterson is the team’s top pitcher with a 10-12 record and 4.25 earned run average.
Cal State Northridge (29-22, 6-9) is coming off a three-game series loss to Long Beach State at home.
Taylor Glover leads the Matadors with a .387 batting average, 37 runs, six triples, six home runs and 45 runs batted in, along with 18 stolen bases in 22 attempts.
BASEBALL TEAM HOSTS NEW YORK TECH: The Rainbow Warriors baseball team has returned home after a seven-game, 12-day road trip to southern California.
UH will host New York Institute of Technology in a four-game nonconference series starting with Friday’s 6:35 p.m. opener, followed by a 3:35 p.m. doubleheader Saturday and Sunday’s 1:05 p.m. finale.
All four games will be broadcast live on radio via ESPN AM 1420.
The Rainbow Warriors (15-25 overall, 3-13 Big West) are coming off a three-game road series loss at Cal State Fullerton. UH lost Friday’s game, 2-1, after a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the 10th inning after the Rainbow Warriors starter had struck out a career-high 11 batters in nine innings.
Cal State Fullerton pounded Hawaii, 17-5, in Saturday’s game but the Rainbow Warriors hung tight again Sunday, taking a 1-1 game into the bottom of the 11th before the Titans scored the winning run on a squeeze bunt.
New York Tech, located in Manhattan, N.Y., is an NCAA Division I program with a 4-36 record.
SAND VOLLEYBALL TEAM AT NATIONALS: The Rainbow Wahine sand volleyball team is one of six teams that will be competing in the AVCA National Championships Friday through Sunday in Gulf Shores, Ala.
Hawaii is the No. 4 seed and will face No. 5 Florida International at 4 p.m. Friday.
The other teams in the field are USC, Pepperdine, Florida State and Stetson.
The team championship will be held Friday and Saturday, in a double-elimination format with sudden death in the final four. The finals are set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
The pairs championship will begin with pool play Friday and Saturday with the 10 “Best of the Rest” duos selected from schools not in the team competition.
The top two finishing teams will be entered into Sunday’s 16-team single-elimination period. The top six pairs from the team championships and the top two from the four semifinalists will also be entered into Sunday’s pairs championship bracket. There will be a play-in for the final two positions.
First-round matches in the pairs championship will start at 3 a.m. Sunday, with the semifinals to follow at 7 a.m. and the championship match at 9 a.m.
The top UH tandem of Karissa Cook and Brittany Tiegs will compete in the pairs championship along with the Rainbow Wahine team of Katie Spieler and Nikki Taylor. Cook and Tiegs went 33-4 in the regular season, while Spieler and Taylor had a 33-10 record.
Hawaii went 18-3 in the regular season and is ranked No. 3 in the latest AVCA poll.