Dylan Thomas picked up right where he left off last year out of the bullpen.

The junior right-hander, who tied UH’s single-season saves record but moved into the starting rotation this season, capped another come-from-behind win for Hawaii with a perfect ninth inning in a 7-4 victory over CSU Bakersfield on Thursday night.

A Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 896 watched Hawaii (9-8) win for the fifth time this season when trailing after seven innings.

UH sophomore Daylen Calicdan put the Rainbows ahead with a two-run single in a six-run eighth inning. He also had the go-ahead hit seven days earlier with a three-run double in the eighth to beat Oregon.

Hawaii has outscored opponents 26-11 in an inning that is quickly becoming magical for the Rainbow Warriors.

“That speaks volumes about our club. If we’re behind it doesn’t matter because we have more outs to play and we’re going to play to that last out,” Calicdan said. “I feel most of our runs are seventh inning or after and we trust ourselves to score in the late innings.”

Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso called it a great statistic that isn’t going to hold up over the course of a season.

“I’d much rather score six in the first inning than the last, but you take them when they come,” Trapasso said.

Hawaii snapped a season-high three-game losing streak that included losing leads of 3-1 in the eighth inning and 7-5 in the ninth in separate losses to the Ducks.

It forced Trapasso to move Thomas back to the bullpen and gave UH an added comfort level in the ninth inning on Thursday night.

“I really liked (Thomas) as a starter but really love him as the closer,” Calicdan said. “It’s the best feeling.”

Thomas struck out the first batter he faced to give him 28 in 20 innings. He got the last two outs on ground balls.

“It’s kind of like riding a bike, honestly,” Thomas said. “It’s hard not to have the adrenaline at the end of the game there. Having experienced a couple of starts now I definitely think it’s a little more mellow coming out of the gate when you’re starting. I couldn’t help but feel my heart beating a little bit faster there.”

Hawaii sent 11 men to the plate in the eighth, with Alex Baeza’s one-out single falling in front of left fielder Cole Valetta to cut the deficit to 4-2. Ethan Lopez ripped an RBI double to the left-field corner and Calicdan’s single found a spot past a diving Tyler Jorgensen at third to give UH the lead.

A bases-loaded walk and an error closed out the inning, in which the Roadrunners (9-10) used five pitchers.

“We’re never out of it, and if we can keep finishing off games in the back end of the ’pen we can be really good,” Thomas said. “We’re going to have a good chance of being good.”

Hawaii led 1-0 when Bakersfield’s Alexander Gonzales, the younger brother of Marco Gonzales, who last week was named the opening-day starter for the Seattle Mariners, hit his first homer in only his 18th at-bat of the season to lead off the fifth.

Bakersfield added two more runs in the inning on RBI singles by Noah Barba and Evan Berkey against Hawaii freshman starter Li’i Pontes, who gave up one earned run on seven hits in five innings with three strikeouts.

Hawaii didn’t walk a batter for the first time this season.

“I thought Pontes was good early, but I was disappointed for him that he gave up the home run and then got shook a little bit,” Trapasso said. “Cade Smith coming in and managing that inning for us was huge.”

Left-hander Jeremy Wu-Yelland (1-0, 2.70 ERA) will start Game 2 of the series for UH tonight at 6:35.