UC Irvine continued its baseball mastery of the Big West — and Hawaii — with Saturday’s doubleheader sweep at Cicerone Field at Anteater Ballpark in Irvine, Calif.

In winning 12-5 and 4-3, the Anteaters claimed the first three of this four-game series against UH to improve to 7-0 in the Big West and 13-7 overall. The Rainbow Warriors fell to 3-4 and 11-6 overall after suffering their fourth consecutive loss. The series concludes today with the first pitch at 10 a.m. Hawaii time.

“It was a rough day at the yard,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said in a telephone interview. “That’s the only way to sum it up.”

In the doubleheader’s first game, designated hitter Jacob Igawa belted a three-run homer to stake the ’Bows to a 4-0 lead in the opening frame. After that, the ’Bows managed only three more hits against UCI’s Nick Pinto. Pinto walked one and struck out eight in seven innings. During a stretch, he retired 11 in a row.

The Anteaters went ahead, 7-4, with a five-run fifth and ended the drama with four more runs in the eighth.

“The first game was an abomination to the craft of pitching and defense,” Trapasso said.

The ’Bows allowed 16 hits, committed three errors and threw to the wrong cutoff player to turn singles into scoring-position opportunities. A player also miscounted the number of outs.

UH starting pitcher Cade Halemanu, who pitched 8 1/3 scoreless innings a week earlier, had difficulty with his aim. “Cade just could not locate his fastball, could not throw anything down in the zone,” Trapasso said. “Everything was above the (catcher’s mask). And they just hammered everything he left up. They were hunting elevation. And we didn’t play defense behind him, either.”

In the second game, the Anteaters cobbled a 3-0 lead on four consecutive hits in the third inning. The ’Bows closed to 3-1 on Safea Villaruz-Mauai’s RBI single to right in the sixth and tied it when Kole Kaler placed a hard grounder past the third baseman regarded as the “human vacuum” (Connor McGuire) for a two-run double in the seventh.

In the UCI seventh, shortstop Taishi Nakawake powered the eighth pitch from Li‘i Pontes off the wall in left field for a double. Nakawake advanced to third when Pontes had difficulty fielding McGuire’s bunt, and scored the go-ahead run on Mike Peabody’s safety-squeeze.

The ’Bows filled the bases with two outs in the ninth, but Tyler Best’s flyout to right ended it.

“When we’ve got ducks on the pond, we’ve got to do a better job of getting them in,” Trapasso said.

Trapasso praised UH freshman starting pitcher Austin Teixeira, who gutted his way through the first six innings. “It was disappointing we weren’t able to reward him for a quality start,” Trapasso said.