Baseball goes overseas: Cougars to battle Rainbow Warriors
Hawai’i has one fielding error on the season, senior pitcher with 16 strikeouts in 12 innings
ABIGAIL LINNENKOHL | DAILY EVERGREEN FILE
Then-freshman right-handed pitcher Connor Barison pitches against Stanford on March 31 at Bailey-Brayton Field.
February 20, 2020
The WSU baseball team travels to Honolulu, Hawaii, this weekend for a four-game series against the University of Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors.
The Cougars (1-3) look to bounce back after losing two games to California State University, Bakersfield and one game to California State University, Northridge. Meanwhile, Hawaii (5-1) are coming off of three straight wins against North Dakota State University after losing the first game of the four-game series.
This is the second ever series between the Cougars and the Rainbow Warriors. The first series was in 2005, and the two teams split the four-game series.
In the first game against CSUB on Friday, sophomore pitcher Zane Mills allowed no hits and recorded eight strikeouts in 4.1 innings pitched. Senior pitcher Owen Leonard also recorded his first career save against CSUB and allowed no runs in the two innings he pitched against CSUB and CSUN.
The Cougars struggled with hitting in the first four games with a batting average of .175. Their opponent’s batting average is .248.
Sophomore infielder Kyle Manzardo played well over the weekend, hitting three doubles, an RBI and averaged .333 hitting. Junior infielder Garrett Gouldsmith went 5 for 15 this past weekend as well, tying Manzardo for leading the team at the plate.
The Rainbow Warriors team batting average is .291 and are holding opponents to .221. Redshirt junior infielder Dustin Demeter leads the team with a .467 batting average and 10 RBIs. Junior infielder Kole Kaler has a batting average of .400, eight RBIs and leads the team with 10 hits. The team scored 30 runs against NDSU and allowed eight runs.
For pitching, the Rainbow Warriors have a 2.67 ERA. Senior pitcher Logan Pouelsen leads the team with 16 strikeouts in 12 innings pitched and has a 3.65 ERA. Sophomore pitcher Aaron Davenport has 12 strikeouts on nine innings pitch and an ERA of 4.00
Hawai’i has one fielding error on the season. The Cougars recorded six errors in four games, which led to them giving up three unearned runs in four games.
The Cougars play the first game of the four-game series against the University of Hawai’i at 8:35 p.m. PST Thursday at Les Murakami Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii.
