Baseball Hosts Hawai'i For Three-Game Series To Close 2013 Season

May 23	6:00 pm PT	vs. Hawai'i	LHP, Dylan Stuart	Game Notes	Listen Live (HI Feed)	Live Stats	Purchase Tickets
May 24	6:00 pm PT	vs. Hawai'i	LHP, Ben Doucette		Listen Live (HI Feed)	Live Stats	Purchase Tickets
May 25	1:00 pm PT	vs. Hawai'i	RHP, Zach Varela			Live Stats	Purchase Tickets

Riverside—The UC Riverside Baseball Team concludes its 2013 season this week by hosting Hawai'i at The Plex for a three-game Big West Conference series. As is typical of the last weekend of regular season competition, games are slated for Thursday (6 pm PT), Friday (6 pm) and Saturday (1 pm) rather than the traditional Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule.

Attendees at Thursday's game will get to be a part of an upcoming UC Riverside promotional video as the Office of Strategic Communications will have an aerial video camera shooting game action as well as shots of the fans (get inspired to come to the game/see what the aerial video camera can do).

In pregame ceremonies on Saturday, the Highlanders will honor their eight seniors: Kyle Boudreau, Ben Doucette, Trevor Frank, Mark Garcia, Phil Holinsworth, Clayton Prestridge, Bart Steponovich and Eddie Young.

After coming back from eight runs down to defeat San Diego in a 10-inning slugfest on Tuesday (box score/recap), the Highlanders dropped three straight to Long Beach State to fall to 8-16 in conference play and 12-31 overall.

UC Riverside came close to taking two of three from the Dirtbags. On Saturday they had the go-ahead run on base in the top of the ninth, but couldn't complete the comeback (box score/recap), and on Sunday they led 4-2 heading into the bottom of the ninth, but lost 5-4 in 10 innings (box score/recap).

Prestridge (.357/.456/.432) continues to pace the Highlanders offense ranking fifth in the conference in batting average and first in on base percentage. David Andreise and Devyn Bolasky are each hitting .335 earning them top ten rankings as well.

The pitching rotation remains the same for Head Coach Doug Smith this weekend. Dylan Stuart (3-8, 5.16) gets the start Thursday with Ben Doucette (2-7, 5.37) taking the bump on Friday and Zach Varela (4-0, 1.54) closing out the season for the Highlanders on Saturday.

Over the last several weeks, Varela has become a pitcher to watch next year for UC Riverside. Since moving into the starting rotation on April 23, he has a 2-0 record and 2.25 ERA, walking just three batters in 24.0 innings of work.

The Rainbows are 15-33 on the season and 10-14 in Big West play as they try to hold off the Highlanders for the seventh spot in the conference.

Hhawai'i is coming off a sweep of UC Davis that saw the Rainbows pitching staff hold the Aggies to just four runs in three games. Matt Cooper (3-7, 2.99) finished off the Aggies in game three throwing eight scoreless innings in a 6-0 victory. Senior Pi'ikea Kitamura (.246/.301/.296) picked up his 200th career hit during the shut out.

Three right-handers are expected to man the mound for Hawai'i over the weekend. Connor Little (2-6, 4.10) is scheduled start Thursday while Corey MacDonald (7-5, 3.73) gets the nod on Friday and Cooper throws on Saturday.

Hawai'i is finishing its inaugural season in the Big West Conference. The only other time these two teams faced off was back on March 27, 2002 when the Highlanders took the win at home, 12-7 (View All-time Results).

Baseball Hosts Hawai'i For Three-Game Series To Close 2013 Season

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