HONOLULU — Travis Howard turned in a solid outing for his first collegiate start to help Santa Clara baseball defeat Hawai'i 3-1 Thursday night at Les Murakami Stadium. The Broncos got eight hits from their five through nine batters, including two from Hawai'i native Tyler Meditz, on their way to victory.
The Broncos (9-10) broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh on an RBI single from Grant Meylan to drive in Meditz. With one out and runners on the corners, Kert Woods struck out swinging and Meylan got caught in a rundown between first and second, which allowed Joe Becht to score before Meylan was tagged out to end the frame.
Howard (W, 2-1) set career highs with 6.2 innings pitched and seven strikeouts. He allowed an earned run on six hits and issued one walk. The Marana, Ariz. native held the Rainbow Warriors (9-13) to 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position and recorded four straight strikeouts from the final out of the fifth through the end of the sixth.
"Travis stepped up big for us tonight," Santa Clara head coach Dan O'Brien said. "He showed an incredible amount of maturity — especially for his first collegiate start — and that's what makes him special. He's a winner."
Hawai'i loaded the bases with one out in the first and got two runners aboard with one out in the third; the Rainbow Warriors were held scoreless in both those innings. Howard outdueled Hawai'i starter Brendan Hornung (L, 2-5), who allowed three earned runs in 7.1 innings and struck out nine batters.
"I feel like I did pretty well. With a defense like ours, it's easy to stay in the zone," Howard said. "I don't have to pitch around anybody because the defense is great behind me."
After Howard struck out Jacob Sheldon-Collins on his 106th pitch for the second out of the seventh, the Broncos brought in Nick Medeiros to pitch to Jonathan Weeks. Facing runners on second and third with a two-run lead, Medeiros (SV, 2) got Weeks to fly out to center. The right-hander retired six of the next seven batters he faced with four strikeouts and two groundouts to earn the multi-inning save.
Meditz, playing for the first time in his home state since high school, opened the scoring for the Broncos in the second inning. The junior hit a single through the left side to score Kyle Cortopassi, who led off the frame with a triple. Cortopassi led all batters with three hits; Meditz and Meylan went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored.
Several family members of Santa Clara players made the trip, as well as the Bronco Bench Foundation.
"It was awesome; it felt like we were the home team," O'Brien said. "It means so much to all of us to have our Bronco family there, and you can tell by how the guys played that they wanted to make our Bronco family proud. They certainly made this staff proud. They competed like warriors tonight."
Santa Clara and Hawai'i play the second of a four-game series Friday night at 9:35 p.m. PDT. Mitchell White (2-2, 1.34 ERA) takes the hill for the Broncos against Hawai'i righthander Kyle Von Ruden (2-1, 2.95 ERA).
GAME NOTES: Time of the game was 2:43 … attendance was 2,582 … Thursday's contest was the first meeting between the teams since 2009.
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