Saving its best for last, the UC San Diego baseball rebounded for an 11-2 rout of Hawaii in Sunday’s series finale at Les Murakami Stadium.

The Tritons, who entered the weekend atop the Big West standings, lost the first two games 1-0 and 17-8 to fall into second place behind Cal State Fullerton. But the Tritons took advantage of the Rainbow Warriors’ first-inning mistakes to score two unearned runs. A four-run second extended the Tritons’ advantage to 6-0.

“I thought the guys responded really well today,” UCSD coach Eric Newman said. “Obviously, we faced a little adversity (in the first two games), and I thought we handled it much better today. And we came out and played with some poise, but also some urgency that we didn’t necessarily show particularly Friday and Saturday. And we got the pitching performance that we needed as well.”

Newman’s plan was for Aren Alvarez to pitch to nine UH hitters, then give way to Nic Gregson. UH coach Rich Hill knew the analytics showed left-swinging opponents were hitting .400 against right-handed Alvarez. Hill moved right-handed first baseman from Saturday’s seventh spot to cleanup, and stacked left-handed hitters in the bottom four slots of the lineup.

But Alvarez, who pitched the first two innings, and Gregson, who went the next five, did not allow a hit until Jordan Donahue’s one-out single in the sixth. Izaak Martinez pitched the final two scoreless innings for the Tritons.

“In this particular game, it was the plan for Alvarez to go two innings or one time through and then hand the ball over to Nic, and see how far he can take it,” Newman said. “And he did a good job. He took it quite a ways.”

Matt Wong and Jacob Igawa had RBI singles, but that was all the offense the ’Bows could muster. UCSD pitchers struck out eight and walked none. They threw strikes on 68% of their pitches and induced seven groundouts into a shifted infield.

“I think what we did better today was we were just more aggressive in the strike zone,” Newman said, adding on offense the Tritons were “more committed to our swing.”

On the third pitch of the game, leadoff hitter Ryson Ujimori bunted back to the mound. But UH pitcher Alex Giroux mishandled the ball, then underthrew to Igawa at first for an error. Ujimori swiped second — his first steal of the season — and then Giroux plunked Michael Fuhrman. Brandon Larson hit an opposite-field single to left to bring home Ujimori with the game’s first run. With two outs, Crew Robinson’s bunt single plated Fuhrman.

“They took advantage of a couple miscues, (the ’Bows) got behind early, and they really pitched well,” Hill said.

Larson’s two-run single keyed a four-run second inning for the Tritons.

It was 8-0 in the sixth on Doyle Kane’s RBI single and Cameron Hagan’s wild pitch that scored Fuhrman from third.

Tyler Dyball and Zach Losey, two of UH’s six pitchers, had moments in relief. Dyball’s velocity increased in his fourth inning of pitching. Losey threw two scoreless innings, with a fastball touching 94 mph. But Hill found no consolation despite winning the three-game series.

“That’s not what we’re here to do,” said Hill, whose ’Bows fell to 16-13 and 6-6. “We’re here to win a Big West championship. And when we’re at home, in this environment, you know, I feel we should win every game. I don’t care if we’re winning a series, if we’re winning a Friday. Each game is its own entity. And here at Les Murakami Stadium, it’s very tough for opponents. That’s our mentality.”

Newman, whose team improved to 22-12 and 11-4, acknowledged paradise’s distractions.

“Hawaii is a tough place to play,” Newman said. “It was a long flight. I’m sure these guys were hanging out at the beach and doing fun stuff, which is what I wanted them to do. But you’ve got to really get focused to come over here and play. It’s always been a tough place to play. I think Hawaii’s got a good team. I’ve been following. I know they’ve lost some close games and won some close games and had some heartbreaking losses that could have gone the other way for them, too. I think that’s a good team over there, and I’m sure they’ll continue to play well.”