UConn wins third straight to take baseball series from Hawaii

Spurred by a six-run third inning, the UConn baseball team cruised to Monday night’s 9-2 victory over Hawaii at Les Murakami Stadium.

A crowd of 1,641 saw the Huskies cap a three-game win streak to win the four-game series. UConn improved to 9-4. The Rainbow Warriors fell to 7-7.

The ’Bows, who surrendered 16 walks in Sunday’s loss, issued four bases on balls in the series finale. But the Huskies amassed 11 hits, including five doubles, and took advantage of three UH errors.

The ’Bows also were hurt by self-inflicted mistakes. Catcher DallasJ Duarte’s throwing error set up UConn’s first run. In the seventh, shortstop Jordan Donahue could not cleanly field a two-out grounder, enabling the Huskies to score their ninth run.

In the UH third, Matt Miura reached second on a walk and a groundout. But Miura was thrown out at third on a grounder to short. In the fifth, Jordan Donahue, who was on second, was caught in a rundown and eventually tagged out.

Hawaii loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. But pinch hitter Sean Rimmer’s towering flyout to left ended the threat.

UConn scored six runs on seven hits and a hit batsman against three UH pitchers in the third inning for a 7-2 lead. It was the third time in as many games the Huskies scored at least five runs in an inning.

The ’Bows scored two runs in the second to go in front 2-1. With the second baseman over shifting toward the bag, Kyson Donahue grounded a single to right to open the inning. One out later, Jared Quandt grounded to third baseman Dominic Freeberger, whose on-target throw across the diamond went past first baseman Ben Huber for a two-base error. Stone Miyao grounded out to second to bring home Donahue. Quandt scored on Duarte’s single to left.