If you are a fan of all University of Hawaii sports, these are good times.
Everybody’s got a winning record, and a couple of teams are streaking.
Softball is on the road after an 8-2 start with a game at Cal Baptist today and a tournament at Cathedral City, Calif. starting Friday.
Water polo is 7-2 and also playing in a road tournament this week.
Men’s basketball isn’t doing great in conference play at 6-9 in the Big West, but the ‘Bows still have a winning record of 14-12 overall as they go into Saturday’s game at UC San Diego.
Men’s volleyball is 9-1, and this exciting team is on the road this week.
And the gritty Wahine basketball team has extended its winning streak to 13 games after two road victories last week. Laura Beeman’s squad is now 19-6 overall and 13-2 in conference. UH is at the top of the Big West standings with five games left, including one against UC San Diego at home Saturday.
Another UH program playing at home this week has a winning streak; this one is nine games. Program and team are usually interchangeable, but not in this case.
The University of Hawaii baseball team just started its season, and has a four-game winning streak after sweeping Marshall.
But the University of Hawaii baseball program has a nine-game winning streak. That’s because the Rainbows won five in a row to end last season, including two at Long Beach State that started the streak.
The ‘Bows finished 37-16 and 20-10 in the Big West Conference, but the record wasn’t good enough for an NCAA Tournament bid.
This week their opponent is Wichita State, and that brings back great memories for fans of a certain age.
But these aren’t the Shockers of old, who the Rainbows used to battle when both were nationally prominent. Wichita State has made it to seven College World Series and won it in 1989, but hasn’t made an NCAA Tournament appearance since 2009.
They are now coached by former UH assistant Brian Green, who assisted UH coach Rich Hill in 2002, when Hill ran the University of San Diego program. That helped rekindle the series.
The last time these teams met was in 2013. They used to play each other regularly, especially during the Les Murakami days and when another legend, Gene Stephenson, was the WSU coach. Hawaii leads the all-time series 24-23.
Their history goes back to the year that UH was runner-up at its only College World Series.
Thirteen years later, former Shocker Joe Carter would hit one of the most memorable home runs in baseball history to win the World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays.
In 1980 he was a star for Wichita State. On March 10, he hit a triple to key a rally as WSU won its first game in Hawaii. Howard Dashefsky’s home run was not enough for the Rainbows, who had a six-game winning streak snapped by the 6-2 loss.
The Shockers won twice more against the Rainbows But on March 13, Joel Lono went the distance and scattered eight hits as the Rainbows won 7-3. Collin Tanabe had three hits and Kimo Perkins and Eric Tokunaga two apiece. Lono held Carter to a single and a sacrifice fly.
That victory was the start of a 10-game winning streak for the Rainbows.
On April 7 and 8, UH played two games in Wichita as part of a road trip. The ‘Bows won both, 9-1 and 12-6, part of an eight-game winning streak, and evening the season series with the Shockers at three wins each.
Like Hawaii, Wichita State made it to the NCAA Tournament in 1980 (a first for the Shockers), but WSU did not make it through the regional and to the College World Series for the first time until 1982.
It’s hard to figure why one of these programs that were on very similar paths 45 years ago made it to the CWS seven times, and the other just once.
But it will be fun to watch them rekindle an old rivalry as both try to return to national prominence.
