Rainbows pound The Citadel, 13-1, for baseball series split
Sam Spangler pitched seven strong innings and was backed by an 18-hit attack to help Hawai‘i beat The Citadel, 13-1, today to salvage a split of the four-game series before 1,125 at Les Murakami Stadium.
Spangler (1-2) allowed a run, seven hits and three walks with two strikeouts for the Rainbows (6-6). Jesse Moore pitched a scoreless eighth and Lenny Linsky added a scoreless ninth to finish off the Bulldogs.
Michael Clevinger (1-2) was tagged for 10 runs and 12 hits for the Bulldogs (7-3).
The Bulldogs jumped to a 1-0 lead in the first. Nick Orvin led off with a double to right-center, went to third on William Ladd’s sacrifice and after Bryan Altman grounded out to third, scored on David Greene’s single to right.
The Rainbows tied it at 1 in the second on Jeffrey Van Doornum’s solo home run to right.
Hawai‘i added two in the third to take the lead. Pi‘ikea Kitamura led off with a single to center and went to third on Sean Montplaisir’s ground single to right. Greg Garcia’s opposite field single to left scored Kitamura and sent Montplaisir to second. Kolten Wong reached on an wind-aided pop single behind shortstop to load the bases, but David Freitas struck out. Collin Bennett’s sacrifice fly to center scored Monplaisir to make it 3-1.
The Rainbows added two more in the fifth. Montplaisir led off with a single to left and took second while going with the pitch when Garcia grounded out to second. Wong followed with an RBI single to right. Wong stole second and went to third while going on the pitch when Freitas grounded out to short. Bennett tapped a double to left to score Wong to make it 5-0.
Hawai‘i scored five in the sixth to take a 10-1 lead. With one out, Christian Johnson reached on a bunt single to third and stole second. Kitamura was hit by a pitch and Montplaisir followed with an RBI single to right to put runners at the corners. Garcia grounded out to first to score Kitamura and moved Montplaisir to second. Freitas followed with a monster three-run homer to right-center to make it 10-0 to chase starter Clevinger.
The Rainbows added three against reliever Austin Pritcher in the seventh. Van Doornum led off with a walk and took third on Johnson’s double to left-center. Pinch hitter Josh Chevalier was hit b a pitch to load the bases The runners advanced on a wild pitch and then pinch hitter Kalani Brackenridge followed with an RBI single to put runners at the corners. Garcia grounded to third for a double play that scored Chevalier to make it 13-0.