It’s the cardinal sin for any pitcher at any level.

A leadoff walk set the stage for a three-run second inning for Gonzaga, which was more than enough support for preseason first-team All-American Marco Gonzales in a 7-1 win over Hawaii on Friday night.

Brock Slavin hit a two-run double as Gonzaga took a Les Murakami Stadium crowd of 2,049 out of the game early with four runs in the first two innings.

Gonzales (3-1), the reigning West Coast Conference pitcher of the year, gave up one run on four hits in eight innings to help the Zags improve to 7-4-1.

Hawaii dropped to 1-13 and 0-9 at home.

"Two crooked numbers and it’s a leadoff freebee both times," Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso said. "We didn’t recover from that and gave up a crooked number and you do that against a pitcher like Gonzales and you’re in trouble."

The Rainbows ended Gonzales’ scoreless innings streak at 13 with a one-out single up the middle by Pi‘ikea Kitamura to drive in Andre Real, who led off the fourth inning with a double.

Gonzales, who also allowed four hits in eight innings against UH last year, breezed through Hawaii’s lineup the first time through, allowing only one ball hit out of the infield.

Trevor Podratz singled for UH’s third hit of the inning in the fourth, but Gonzales got Kalei Hanawahine to ground out to third to leave both runners on base.

Gonzales allowed a one-out single to Austin Wobrock in the sixth before retiring the final 10 batters he faced.

"I really thought that we battled on the (offensive) end and we’re making strides that way and we’re going to play the guys that are doing what we want to do offensively as far as the adjustments we’re trying to do," Trapasso said. "I thought we battled that way and I thought Connor (Little) battled."

Gonzaga took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a two-out, RBI single by Cory LeBrun to score Steven Halcomb, who reached base on a wild pitch after striking out on an 0-2 pitch that got away from Podratz behind the plate.

"It was tough for the first two innings," Little said. "Me and my catcher weren’t really on the same page off the bat, but we settled down and got back into it."

Slavin smacked his double to right and Cabe Reiten followed with a sacrifice fly to give Gonzaga a 4-0 advantage after two innings.

Gonzaga tacked on a run in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by LeBrun. The Zags loaded the bases as Little hit catcher Travis Forbes with a pitch, but they couldn’t score as Billy Moon fouled out to third.

Gonzaga put its first two men on in the sixth, but Little escaped the jam as Hawaii turned its third double play of the game.

Little flirted with disaster all game, allowing the leadoff man to reach base five straight times, but settled down to go at least seven innings for the third straight start.

"I couldn’t figure out how to get a leadoff guy out to save my life," Little said. "I was leaving my change-up up in the zone and they hit it because they’re a good team with some good hitters."

Trapasso allowed reliever Bryan Burgher to throw only seven pitches before pulling him in the eighth.

Burgher hit a batter on his first pitch and issued a walk to Moon. He started Zach Abbruzza with a ball and Trapasso made his way to the mound for the second time to pull him from the game.

Mitchell Gunsolus hit a two-out, two-run single off of Scott Kuzminsky to put the Zags ahead 7-1.

"There’s no excuse for coming in and not throwing strikes — no excuse," Trapasso said. "It’s a choice of attacking the zone or being soft mentally and we’ve got to be tougher mentally coming out of the bullpen."

Senior Corey MacDonald, the only Rainbow pitcher with a win this year, will get the start in Game 2 of the series tonight at 6:35.