Hawaii baseball drops second straight in Santa Barbara

Zander Darby drove in four runs and Aaron Parker hit a tie-breaking homer in the sixth inning to lead UC Santa Barbara to today’s 10-6 baseball victory over Hawaii at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium on the UCSB campus.

The start of the game was delayed three hours because of heavy rain. The Gauchos then made an early splash with two runs in the second inning, one of them coming on Darby’s run-scoring triple.

With two outs in the fourth and Jonah Sebring on third, Jessada Brown was intentionally walked to set up a potential force at second. But then Darby pulled a drive over the fence in right field for a three-run homer to extend the Gauchos’ lead to 5-0.

The ’Bows rallied for five runs in the sixth to tie it at 5-all. Freshman Elijah Ickes’ two-run double was the big hit.

But in the bottom of the inning, Jonathan Mendez hit a two-out single to center. Parker followed with a two-run homer over left-center to give the Gauchos a 7-5 lead they would not relinquish.

In losing the first two of this three-game series, the ’Bows fell to 19-13 overall and 4-7 in the Big West. The Gauchos are 20-10 and 7-4.

The start of Sunday’s series finale has been moved to 12:05 p.m.