Air Force Baseball Opens With Setback At Hawai'i

Feb. 17, 2018

Air Force baseball opened the 2018 season with a 4-0 loss at Hawai'i on Friday night at Les Murakami Stadium in Honolulu, Hawai'i. Juniors Daniel Jones and Gabe Martinez led the Falcons with two hits each.

Three Rainbow Warrior pitchers combined to toss an eight-hit shutout. Starting pitcher Jackson Rees (1-0) pitched seven scoreless innings for UH to pick up the win. Rees scattered six hits and struck out six. Dylan Thomas pitched 1.1 innings for the save.

Hawai'i scored two runs in the second innings to take an early lead. The Rainbow Warriors tacked on insurance runs in the fifth and eighth innings.

Junior RHP Tyler Mortenson (0-1) pitched 4.1 innings in the start for the Falcons. Mortenson struck out six in the loss. Senior Nick Biancalana allowed one run in 3.1 innings in relief. Biancalana stuck out one and did not walk a batter.

Joining Jones and Martinez with base hits were Jacob Booker, Drew Wiss, Ashton Easley and Rob Dau.

Junior Colby Brown made his Div. I debut for the Falcons, starting at second. Brown had a putout and three assists.

Hawai'i had nine hits. Chayce Ka'aua, Johnny Weeks and Ethan Lopez had two hits each for the Warriors.

"It was opening day with a great atmosphere at UH and our cadets had a lot of energy and it showed on the field and in the dugout," Air Force head coach Mike Kazlausky said. "We have a lot of new starting faces in our lineup, but they have experience. At the end of the day, we just weren't able to string hits together. That's baseball and we'll be back with the same energy and focus tomorrow."

Game two of the four-game series is tomorrow. First pitch is 6:30 pm HT/9:30 pm MT.

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