Before leaving for a California road trip during spring break, the Sea Warriors baseball team played three mainland schools in a grueling 19-game, 17-day home stand. HPU hosted Tampa University, Presbyterian College (South Carolina) and Cal State-Dominguez Hills at Aloha Stadium and finished with nine wins, 10 losses and an overall record of 15-16.

HPU managed just three wins, two against Presbyterian College and one against Tampa University, compared to nine losses, in the first two series.

Starting pitchers Kai Austin and Cruz Hatanaka each earned wins against Presbyterian by scores of 13-8 and 4-2. Hatanaka threw a complete game and struck out a career-high nine batters in the victory.

Austin was also awarded with the 7-2 win over Tampa, thanks in part to catcher Greg Benoit’s three-run triple and two RBI from Stanley.

The Sea Warriors must have finally gotten warmed up, because they proved successful against Cal State-Dominguez Hills, winning six of seven games and outscoring the visiting Toros by a combined 48 runs to 24. HPU pounded out 70 hits while the pitching staff held CS-DH to 47. Third baseman Kyle Stanley drove in nine runs in the series while first baseman Alika Kuraoka notched a home run, two triples and two doubles.

Baseball in California

The Sea Wariors were hard at work during spring break with a 10-game California road trip March 23 through April 3. Riding a six-game winning streak, HPU played four games at Cal Poly Pomona, two at Cal State-Dominguez Hills, and four at Cal State-San Bernadino.

HPU won two games against each opponent resulting in a 6-4 record for the trip and a 20-19 mark overall.

Senior pitcher Josh Ervin won both games of the second double-header against Cal State-San Bernadino. After pitching five innings of relief for a 4-3 victory in the first game, Ervin, now 4-0 on the year, pitched his first career complete game as HPU won game two 8-4.

HPU continued its season-long domination of Cal State-Dominguez Hills as the Sea Warriors swept the Toros 7-0 and 8-3 for an 8-1 record against them. Zach Blatteis won the first game, allowing only three hits in the shutout. Left fielder Greg Benoit, the teams leading hitter with a .411 batting average, went 2-3 with a double, two RBI and two runs while Say added three hits and two runs.

Lefty Cruz Hatanaka got the win in game two, giving up two earned runs in 5.1 innings.

In the first road series against Cal Poly Pomona, Kai Austin and Sean Paiva each picked up wins while Blatteis and Hatanaka were saddled with losses.