UA baseball team heads for Hawaii
The Arizona baseball team said good-bye to the desert this weekend and aloha to Hawaii for a series against The University of Hawaii-Hilo Vulcans (3-10) starting today at 5 p.m. Tucson time.
The series will be five games including a doubleheader on Saturday.
Arizona (3-0) leads the all-time series 6-2 with all the games played at Hilo. The last time the Wildcats and the Vulcans met was in 1997 when UA won three out of four games.
"One of my friends plays for them and as far as I know they are pretty weak offensively and defensively," UA sophomore shortstop and Hawaii native Keoni DeRenne said.
The Wildcats are coming off a three-game sweep of St. Mary's College of Moraga, Calif., while the Vulcans are trying to rebound after back-to-back series against UCLA and Arizona State in which they lost seven games in a row.
"We might be a little tired mentally because we got bounced around pretty bad," Hilo head coach Joey Estrella said. "But as an independent we have to develop the best schedule that we can against teams that can afford to play us."
The Vulcans will be joining the Western Athletic Conference next year in the wake of eight WAC teams leaving to form the Mountain West Conference.
Arizona will be without senior left-hander Rob Shabansky this weekend as he recovers from an elbow strain he suffered in the first game of the series against St. Mary's. Taking his place as a starting pitcher will be junior Mike Crawford, who will start today.
Junior Josh Pearce will start Friday, junior Tony Milo and freshman Ben Diggins will each get starts on Saturday and junior Dave Abbott will take the mound for the series finale on Sunday before the Wildcats return to the mainland.
Diggins and Milo combined for the Wildcats' first shutout in just the third game of the season last Sunday as they beat the Gaels 9-0. Diggins struck out seven batters, while Milo pitched three hitless innings.
"Milo pitched great. Tony had been struggling this fall and spring and he knows it," UA associate head coach Bill Kinneberg said. "But this is proof that he deserves to be starting."
The starting lineup should be the same with Diggins being the designated hitter, but head coach Jerry Stitt said nothing is set in stone.
"We expect to start a few different guys and some guys will play a few more innings," he said. "If a guy is not hitting you want to have someone who is capable to come in and do the job."
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