For the Hawaii baseball team, payback came in the form of Saturday night’s 5-3 victory over Loyola Marymount at Les Murakami Stadium.

A night earlier, the Rainbow Warriors imploded with an anemic five-hit, two-run attack while committing three errors and issuing five walks. But in the third of this four-game series, the ’Bows rebounded with nine hits and scored three of their runs on two LMU errors and a passed ball.

Third baseman Ethan Lopez, who committed two errors on Friday and three for the series, had two hits and made a leaping stop in support of starting pitcher Neil Uskali.

Uskali allowed two hits in seven innings to improve to 2-1.

In the process, Uskali conquered the early-inning issues he experienced in his first two starts. Uskali entered with a 6.00 ERA and 1.67 WHIP in the first three innings of each of his past two games. But in Saturday’s first three innings, Uskali did not allow a hit, throwing strikes on 24 of 29 pitches. Uskali finished with two walks and four strikeouts before exiting in his longest appearance of the season.

“Neil came back to us,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “I don’t know where he’s been for the last month, but tonight he was really good. We saw that right away. He threw a couple change-ups and sliders that had bite and were for strikes. In the past, they hadn’t been close to the plate.”

Uskali said his two-seam fastball set up his secondary pitches.

“I had three pitches today,” Uskali said. “I tried to attack hitters. I was shying away from that the past couple weeks. I was getting ahead of hitters and letting our defense make some plays, and they did.”

But there was some late drama. After the Lions loaded the bases with two outs against Colin Ashworth in the eighth, Dylan Thomas was summoned for the sixth time this season. Thomas struck out Trevin Esquerra to end the threat, then survived a white-knuckle ninth. Three consecutive hits led to two ninth-inning runs, but Thomas escaped for his fourth save.

The ’Bows broke a 1-all tie with a three-run fifth. With one out, Jacob Sniffin, making his 2018 debut, sizzled a grounder down the right-field line for a double. Sniffin then sprinted all the way home when Nick Frasso’s pitch eluded catcher Cooper Uhl.

Two struggling UH hitters — Dylan Vchulek and Dustin Demeter — reached on consecutive singles. Both scored when Adam Fogel hit a sharp grounder that went past second baseman Nick Sogard and rolled to the wall for a triple. Of Fogel’s 12 hits this season, eight have been for extra bases. He also has five doubles and two homers.

Another LMU mistake led to another run and extended the ’Bows’ lead to 5-1 in the seventh.

Pinch hitter Johnny Weeks, who did not start the past two games, drew a walk to start the seventh. Weeks went to second on Maaki Yamazaki’s sacrifice. Vchulek then hit a grounder that shortstop Niko Decolati fielded cleanly but then overthrew first baseman Jamey Smart. Weeks scored from second for the ’Bows’ fifth run.

The ’Bows took a 1-0 lead in the second inning. Lopez opened with a single to left. Then Alex Baeza, making his second start of the season, doubled down the right-field line as Lopez sprinted to third. Tyler Murray hit a grounder to short that went under Decolati’s glove, allowing Lopez to race home safely.

The Lions tied it at 1 in the third. Sogard singled to right — the first hit allowed by Uskali on his 35th pitch of the game — and went to second on Billy Wilson’s walk. Uskali struck out Decolati and Esquerra. But Smart singled to right to score Sogard.