Hawaii baseball team walks off with win over Cal Poly

The Hawaii baseball team pulled off a thrilling walk-off win against Cal Poly on Friday night at Les Murakami Stadium, thanks to some late-game heroics from Naighel Ali‘i Calderon and Austin Machado.

Calderon, a senior from Lanai City, came up clutch in the ninth inning with a leadoff single and eventually scored the winning run on Machado’s sacrifice fly to deep center field. The victory marked the second walk-off win of the season for the Rainbow Warriors, who improved to 21-14 overall and 5-8 in Big West Conference play.

The game was a back-and-forth affair, with Cal Poly taking a 3-1 lead in the fourth inning before Hawaii rallied to tie it up on a two-run double by freshman Elijah Ickes. The Rainbow Warriors’ bullpen, led by freshman Sebastian Gonzalez, shut down the Mustangs the rest of the way to give their offense a chance to win it in the ninth.

Jordan Donahue continued his hot hitting with a 2-for-4 performance, extending his hitting streak to 18 games, the fourth longest in program history. Dallas Duarte also chipped in with two hits, including a key double in the first inning.

Head coach Rich Hill made some bold pitching decisions, pulling his starter early and turning to Gonzalez, who delivered five solid innings of relief to keep Hawaii in the game. Danny Veloz picked up the win after working around a ninth-inning single from Cal Poly.

The Rainbow Warriors will look to carry their momentum into Saturday’s matchup against Cal Poly, with Randy Abshier expected to take the mound for Hawaii. Fans can expect another exciting showdown between these two competitive teams as they battle for conference supremacy.