The drop-off in swag between Oregon and New Mexico is pretty big.

The talent gap between the two schools isn’t.

For the first time in six years, the Hawaii baseball team will play its home opener against a team other than Ducks, who had become an opening-night tradition at Les Murakami Stadium.

While the Lobos won’t have the flashy chrome helmets or the eye-popping uniform combinations the Ducks debuted each year, New Mexico is every bit as dangerous of a team as Oregon.

UNM has made a regional in four of the past six years under head coach Ray Birmingham and is picked as the co-favorite in the Mountain West Conference this season with San Diego State.

New Mexico went 32-27 last season, losing in the championship game of the MWC tournament, and returns nearly all of its major contributors on offense.

“They’ve got veterans in the middle of their lineup that always put up offensive numbers,” Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. “They will be a very good challenge for us.”

Hawaii’s untested pitching staff will get all it can handle from a Lobos team that finished sixth in the country in batting in 2015.

Third baseman Carl Stajduhar set a UNM freshman record with 53 RBIs last season and was named the preseason MWC player of the year by one major publication.

Outfielder Danny Collier hit .346 and was first-team All-Mountain West last year, and first baseman Jack Zoellner is the Lobos’ leading returning hitter after batting .352 last season.

“Right now, all we’re trying to do is find out where we’re at,” Birmingham said. “You play for that one moment in time, that one year that it all gels and everybody stays healthy and they’re all juniors and seniors. Let’s make this happen.”

Hawaii got an early start on the rest of college baseball, splitting two games against Division II Hawaii Hilo last weekend.

Junior Brendan Hornung made his UH debut, allowing one run in 62⁄3 innings, and senior Kyle Von Ruden worked five innings in his Sunday start.

Seniors Josh Pigg and Alex Hatch and will get their first Division I starts this weekend as the final two pitchers in UH’s four-man rotation.

Pigg threw only 92⁄3 innings last season and struggled with his command, walking 11.

A two-way player in junior college, Pigg pitched as a starter for the first time last summer in the Northwoods League and went 3-0 with a 2.41 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 371⁄3 innings.

“I put up some good numbers over the summer and came in with that mind-set (of starting),” Pigg said. “It was the most important summer of my life to go in there and figure it out and gain the confidence to do as well as I did because it’s a pretty good league.”

Like Pigg, Hatch wasn’t used much as a junior either, throwing only 121⁄3 innings.

A junior-college transfer from Bellevue College, Hatch draws comparison to another Bellevue alum, Scott Kuzminsky.

Kuzminsky threw only 20 innings as a junior before turning into the team’s No. 2 starter as a senior, finishing with a 3.25 ERA in 882⁄3 innings.

“He and Von Ruden and Pigg, all three have come back with more confidence having been through everything for a year and you see it a lot,” Trapasso said. “While they are junior-college guys, their first year is still their first year of Division I baseball and we’ve seen that jump made by a lot by guys like Kuzminsky and (Matt) Cooper.”

Lefty Carson Schneider will start tonight for the Lobos, but the pitcher to watch is sophomore right-hander Tyler Stevens, who will oppose Von Ruden on Saturday.

Stevens is the first UNM pitcher to earn freshman All-America honors and set a freshman record with a 3.44 ERA in 68 innings.

He also threw the Lobos’ first nine-inning, one-hit complete game in 50 years.

Monday’s start time has been moved up an hour to 5:35 p.m. to give the Lobos more time to catch their flight out. The game could end in a tie if it’s not over by a certain time.