In a close match against the unranked Hawaii Rainbows at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond last night, the Stanford baseball team lost 5-2. The Cardinal never trailed in the game until the top of the ninth inning when Hawaii’s power hitter Jonathan Hee — who was 2-3 with a double and 3 RBIs — hit a sacrifice fly to bring in Sean Montplaisir.

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Jeff Keacher

Senior Randy Molina went 3-for-4, but it wasn't enough to get the Card a victory.

“We didn’t do much with the bats,” coach Mark Marquess said. “We had a couple of opportunities to score big runs but we didn’t take advantage of them. Our main opportunity to take the lead came in the eighth. I have to give them credit because they won the big spots and we didn’t. Tonight we had plenty of opportunities, but no hits.”

The Cardinal had several opportunities to cushion its lead but caught a few tough breaks when trying to gather the timely hits needed to start off a rally. In the bottom of the second, senior Randy Molina and junior Sean Ratliff led off the Cardinal offense with back-to-back singles off of Hawaii’s right hander Matt Daly. Pinch hitter Austin Yount walked to load the bases.

Freshman Colin Walsh had an inauspicious beginning to only his second start of the season after hitting a grounder to shortstop Jonathan Hee which led to a double play. The play brought in Molina to put the Cardinal on the board, 1-0. Toby Gerhart was unable to rally the offense with two outs against him and eventually struck out to end the inning.

Stanford’s most important scoring opportunity came in the bottom of the eighth with the score knotted at 2. Ratliff led off with a shot to right field that earned him a stand-up leadoff triple. With the go-ahead run just 90 feet away from home plate, the Cardinal still was unable to drive Ratliff in. Junior Brent Milleville hit a line drive straight to Jonathan Hee, freshman pinch hitter Ben Clowe grounded out and junior pinch hitter Jeff Whitlow struck out leaving Ratliff stranded on third.

After Stanford was unable to break the draw, Hawaii finally pulled itself together and took over the game in the top of the ninth. Even though Greg Garcia grounded out to lead off the inning, Hawaii was able to score three runs to win the game off losing pitcher Alex Pracher, who allowed three runs — two earned — on three hits and a walk in two-thirds of an inning. It all started when Montplaisir hit a single to left field and Derek DuPree hit a single to center field that advanced Montplaisir to third.

Hee brought in the game-winning run when he hit a sacrifice fly to center to bring in Montplaisir. DuPree eventually stole second and after Brandon Haislet walked there were runners on first and second. Jeffrey Van Doornum singled to center field bringing in DuPree and a wild pitch from Pracher advanced him and Haislet to second and third base. Kevin McDonald brought in Hawaii’s final run on a throwing error by sophomore Adam Gaylord. Stanford’s sophomore pitcher Brandt Walker ended the Rainbow rally by striking out Landon Hernandez.

The big hitter for the Rainbow Warriors last night was Garcia, who came into the game with a .175 batting average which improved to a .227 after he went three-for-four. Van Doornum also added to Hawaii’s hit tally with three hits on five plate appearances and an RBI. DuPree, Hee and Montplaisir had two hits apiece as Hawaii outhit the Cardinal 13-9 for the night.

Stanford did put up a good fight though, with both Ratliff and Molina getting three hits on four at bats which brings their hitting streaks up to 11 and seven games, respectively. Junior Cord Phelps added one hit to the Cardinal box score which brings his streak to a career-high-tying and season-high eight in a row. Phelps also extended his on base streak to 27 consecutive games.

Though Stanford did have a few bit hits, it was unable to put any runners on base in the bottom of the ninth against winning pitcher Josh Kramer; the game ended 5-2 in favor of the Rainbows. The Cardinal loss brought Hawaii’s six-game losing streak to a close. A tough loss to take, it may have killed some of Stanford’s momentum going into this weekend’s series with Arizona State, the No. 1 team in the nation.

“Arizona State is very good and very sound,” Marquess said. “We will have to play very well to beat them. We will have to see how things go since they have only lost one game so far. Hopefully we will bounce back and play well.”

The series with ASU begins this Friday at 6 p.m. when the Cardinal takes on the Sun Devils at Sunken Diamond.

Contact Roxie Dickinson at roxie221@stanford.edu.