Big West leaders, UH and Long Beach State, renew old rivalry

Nothing invigorates a dormant rivalry quite like a title chase.

Hawaii and Long Beach State met sporadically after parting ways following the 1996 season, but those games lacked the stakes of a conference race.

"We’ve played them a couple times since the Big West, but it really didn’t have the same intensity," UH head coach Bob Coolen said.

With UH back in the conference this season, that intensity also figures to return this weekend when the Rainbow Wahine and 49ers renew their Big West softball rivalry atop the conference standings.

The Wahine (37-8, 14-1 Big West) enter the series ranked 14th and 20th in the national polls and with a 31⁄2-game lead over defending BWC champion LBSU (30-19, 12-6) and Pacific.

The three-game series opens today with a 6 p.m. single game at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium. The Wahine and 49ers, who lead the all-time series 49-25, play a doubleheader starting at 2 p.m. Saturday.

During UH’s 16-year tenure in the Western Athletic Conference, the series with Fresno State was an annual highlight of the league schedule. UH senior Kelly Majam said this week’s series "does have that feel of how those games were always more intense, more upbeat, more alive in the dugout. So I think these are going to be really quality games this weekend."

With nine games left in the regular season, scenarios for securing the league title have emerged. But Coolen is focused on more immediate concerns.

"I’m not thinking about that," Coolen said. "I’m thinking about the single game Friday night. … We just have to play our game."

Part of preparing for the series has been allowing the players time to recharge following an 11-day road trip with several nursing various aches and bruises late in the season.

"We have to gauge that right now and let them mentally get ready for these games," Coolen said.

LBSU figures to throw junior Erin Jones-Wesley and sophomore Amanda Hansen against the Wahine. Jones-Wesley, the 2011 Big West Pitcher of the Year, leads the 49ers staff at 15-8 with a 2.77 earned-run average and shares starts with Hansen (9-6, 2.79).

Jones-Wesley and UH senior Kaia Parnaby pitched in the last meeting between the teams, a 10-4 UH win in Las Vegas early in the 2011 season. Parnaby struck out seven in a complete-game win while Jones-Wesley threw three innings of relief, gave up three runs, struck out four and hit two batters.

"(Jones-Wesley) threw pretty hard and their team is definitely scrappy and will hit the ball and put the ball in play," Majam said.

Parnaby (34-4, 1.32) broke the program’s single-season wins record last week and is one strikeout away from joining Brooke Wilkins as the only UH pitchers to reach 300 in a season. Parnaby is also 25 strikeouts away from the record set by Wilkins in 1994.

This weekend’s series is also a matchup of the Big West’s top two offenses with LBSU hitting .285 followed by UH at. 284.

LBSU junior Hanna De Gaetano enters the series as the conference’s leading hitter at .374, followed by Shayna Kimbrough at .359.

UH is hitting a collective .336 in Big West play led by Sharla Kliebenstein (.393) and Jessica Iwata (.386). Overall, Majam and freshman Keiki Carlos are tied for the team-high at .326.

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