After a week off, the Hawaii softball team embarked on its second road trip of the season looking forward to a fresh start.

Loie Kesterson has learned to apply a similar outlook on a pitch-by-pitch scale to move to the front of the starting rotation for the Rainbow Wahine.

Kesterson’s focus from one pitch to the next not fixating on the last nor looking beyond her next throw has helped her emerge as UH’s most consistent pitcher as the Wahine close the nonconference schedule and open the Big West season during their stay in Southern California this week.

"I think each game it helps me gain a lot more confidence in myself," Kesterson said. "Before, I was doubting myself and now I don’t doubt as much and that helps a lot. You have to have confidence or it’s not going to work."

The Rainbow Wahine (13-14) departed Honolulu on Monday morning and face Missouri-Kansas City and Loyola Marymount on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

The team will then head inland for a weekend series on the UC Riverside campus, a couple of freeway exits from Kesterson’s home in Corona, Calif., and open Big West play against the Highlanders (19-14) on Friday and Saturday.

"My mom will text me every day (about the trip) because I haven’t seen them in a while," Kesterson said before the team’s departure. "I think being with my family and getting to see them is going to help me a lot because it’s hard sometimes being so far away from home."

Kesterson (7-5, 4.63 earned-run average) began her sophomore season by shutting out UCLA, currently the nation’s top-ranked team, for 6 2/3 innings before the Bruins rallied to win in extra innings. Her roller-coaster ride continued before stabilizing in recent weeks.

After Kesterson’s ERA peaked at 6.34 early in UH’s recently completed homestand, the left-hander whittled at that figure with a string of solid starts, including a win over California and a 3-0 loss to No. 4 Oregon in her last appearance.

"I feel like sometimes I rush myself so another big thing that me and (associate coach Dee Wisneski) work on is my rhythm and my breathing," Kesterson said. "That helps a lot because when I rush that’s when everything gets crazy."

Kesterson’s ascent in Hawaii’s pitching rotation has come with greater consistency in staying low in the strike zone.

"Loie is a down-ball pitcher," UHcoach Bob Coolen said. "When she’s throwing the ball down and (hitters are) seeing the top of the ball, we’re getting a lot of ground-ball outs and the ball is staying in the ballpark."

Coolen said Kesterson will be the first-game starter for this week’s series. The rest of the rotation is somewhat unsettled.

"We need our pitchers to come about and we need Loie to pitch as well as she’s been pitching on a consistent basis," Coolen said. "We need Heather (Morales) to come out of her doldrums. We need Keiki (Carlos) to gain some confidence."

The Wahine were picked to win the Big West in the preseason coaches poll, but enter the week as one of just two Big West teams with sub-.500 records. Long Beach State leads the league at 23-9 followed by UC Santa Barbara (20-8) and Cal State Northridge (21-10).

"A clean slate, that’s what we’re looking at right now," said Carlos, UH’s leading hitter at .381."We know we didn’t do as well as we had hoped in the preseason, but we know we have to flush it and start anew. We know we can play and we know we’ve played a bunch of good teams, so we’re confident in ourselves."

The Wahine had a week off leading to their spring-break trip and face first-year Western Athletic Conference member UMKC (10-20) at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the first game of the doubleheader at Loyola Marymount’s Smith Field. UH and LMU(17-13) are scheduled to meet at 11.

The conference schedule opens with a single game at UC Riverside on Friday, with a doubleheader scheduled for Saturday.