Rainbow Wahine softball takes hot start into third tournament
The action comes fast and furious for the Hawaii softball team this week.
Given the way the Rainbow Wahine have started 2019, that’s just fine for them. Heading into the third tournament of the season — this week’s Hawaii Invitational — Bob Coolen’s gang is hitting .315 as a team, with 16 home runs to opponents’ eight and a 3.78 team ERA that’s roughly half of what they’ve hung on their foes.
UH’s 8-2 record is its best through 10 games since the 2012 team won its first 10 (on the way to a 21-0 start).
The Wahine kept it going Wednesday evening with a 2-1 win over New Mexico (3-6) in a stand-alone game heading into the four-team tourney. DePaul (8-1) and Canisius (0-0) are the other teams.
#WCW 🥎 Callee Heen smacked this solo HOMERUN in tonight's 2-1 win over New Mexico! @HawaiiSB improves to 8-2, best 10 game start since 2012! More tonight during @KITV4 sports at 10 #GoBows pic.twitter.com/fgmGgMxWUD
— Brandi Higa (@bhiga12) February 21, 2019
Including Wednesday’s game, UH plays eight games in five days, including doubleheaders on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“There’s a lot of games back-to-back-to-back, and it’ll be exhausting, but we’re going to push through it,” catcher Callee Heen said this week. “We’re excited. We’re pushing for 40 wins this year.”
Coolen is looking forward to this run of competition which serves as the opening salvo of a massive 24-game homestand through March 30.
“Hopefully the rain, which is stopped … will be gone for the rest of the week,” Coolen said Tuesday. “That’s what we’re looking forward to, is getting a lot of games (in). We lost a game against BYU (to a rainout in Las Vegas). We just need to keep our number of games up. In this El Nino year, you never know when the rains are going to come.”
Or the thunder. Heen, who is hitting a team-best .481 with 11 RBIs and six home runs, is nearly halfway to her homer total of 14 from her All-Big West sophomore season. She was confident in her frame of mind in the thick of a run of games such as this week, knowing another contest is on the way either later that night or the next day. “You can take a deep breath, relax, flush that one and get to the next one,” she said.
Coolen has seen a better response among his players for the team’s aggressive philosophy at the plate. UH batted .244 last year, when it finished 23-27 overall and 7-14 in the Big West.
“This year we’ve had every player walk up to the plate and swing at the first pitch,” Coolen said. “Not really take third strikes looking. So it’s been a total buy-in, a trust factor that we’ve been waiting for.”
As for the pitching, sixth-year senior Brittany Hitchcock (3-1) hasn’t been lights-out yet in her return from an injury-shortened 2018, although she’s coming off one of her best games of the season — a three-hitter with a single earned run and one walk with nine strikeouts against the Lobos on Wednesday.
She’s supported by freshman starter Izzy Dino (3.79, 2-1) and lefty reliever Emily Klee (2.76, 2-0).
“Having a strong staff this year as pitchers really does make everyone else feel more comfortable and not so stressed about what’s going to happen,” said Klee, a sophomore who’s already matched her win total from her freshman season. “My freshman year (went) really well, having (Hitchcock) and Dana (Thomsen) with us. They really set a good example of how to control your role as a pitcher and do what you need to get done.”
Coolen might employ more than just Hitchcock, Dino and Klee this week, depending how things shake out.
“Emily Klee has come out of nowhere for us and brings a different side to the mound with her left-handedness,” he said. “That just bodes well for us. Now we just gotta work in (Ashley) Murphy and (Dominique) Martinez to see where they fit in. But Brittany will get the bulk of the starts with Izzy Dino right behind her. And then if we have to expand because of the number of games we’re playing in such few days, Brittany may get a rest and we’ll go with three. But right now Brittany wants the ball as much as she can, because this is her last hurrah, she feels.”
Exciting season. Just hope the Wahine stay focused one game at a time. And let the bats rip.
I would like the team to change their hitting approach at home. They went up to Vegas and start hitting a lot of home runs. They come home and try to duplicate that and all they ended up doing it hitting a lot of pop ups and fly balls.
I attended the New Mexico game and there was way too much fly balls. I don’t think this team have enough power to blast HRs like they did in Las Vegas.
They should stick with going for double and hit for the gaps. They got handcuffed by a New Mexico pitcher who was not an elite level D1 pitcher(although was a very good JC pitcher).
The game have changed and the ball and bat have been altered so HRs will not fly out like before.
It was a bitter-sweet tournament for the Whine. Bitter part was losing to New Mexico and not having a chance to play DePaul to avenge their earlier loss. The sweet part was Brittany Hitchcock having a complete game against Canisius in a 7-2 win….and Kumabe hitting a HR. Nicole Lopez hitting two HRs was awesome. She’s really on a hot-streak.