UH baseball’s second longest game in history ends with loss
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Hawaii infielder Josh Rojas (21) gets Long Beach State catcher Daniel Jackson (35) at second base to turn a double play during the fifth inning of a college baseball game on Saturday at Les Murakami Stadium in Manoa.
The second-longest baseball game in program history ended with a thud for Hawaii.
Long Beach State scored seven runs in the top of the 12th after giving up a two-run lead in the ninth inning to defeat Hawaii 11-4 on Saturday night before a Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 2,444.
Daniel Jackson broke a 4-4 tie with a two-run double and Garrett Nelson added a three-run homer in extra innings for the Dirtbags (27-18, 10-7 Big West), who snapped a four-game losing streak to the Rainbow Warriors (19-24, 8-9).
Hawaii dropped to 4-2 in extra-inning games this season. The only game to last longer was a 15-inning affair at San Diego State in 1994 that lasted 5 hours, 19 minutes.
UH was down to its final two outs trailing 4-2 against Long Beach State closer Chris Rivera and tied the game with a walk and three straight singles.
Matt LoCoco’s RBI single to left scored Conner Linebarger to make it a 4-4 game and Hawaii had the bases loaded with two outs but couldn’t score the winning run.
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UH left a runner on second in the bottom of the 10th inning and had the winning run on second with nobody out in the 11th inning and failed to score.
Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso was ejected in the 11th when Johnny Weeks was called out on a close play at first that would have resulted in first and third with one out.
Instead, LoCoco was at third with two outs and stranded when Jacob Sheldon-Collins struck out.
Sheldon-Collins dropped a fly ball in shallow left with two outs in the top of the ninth that allowed Long Beach State to double its lead to 4-2.
Kyle Mitchell (1-1) gave up all seven runs in the 12th inning to take the loss for UH.
Ethan Lopez finished 3-for-4 with a triple, walk, two runs and an RBI and LoCoco was 3-for-6 with two RBIs. Josh Rojas was 3-for-4 with a walk.
Hawaii finished with 11 hits.
Ty Provencher (2-2) gave up one hit in 3 1/3 scoreless innings of relief with two walks and three strikeouts to earn the win.
Junior Brendan Hornung (3-7, 3.23 ERA) will make his first non-opening series start of the season for Hawaii in the rubber match of the series Sunday at 1:05 p.m.
