Players look forward to trip to Hawaii after first victory

Published: Thursday, January 29, 1998

Thursday, January 29, 1998

BASEBALL: Team mixes starting players in face off against Rainbows

By Vytas Mazeika

Daily Bruin Staff

The No. 18 UCLA baseball team will be rewarded for their season-opening victory on Saturday with a trip to Hawaii.

Actually, the Bruins were scheduled to make their first road trip of the season to Hawaii a long time ago. But the UCLA coaches and players wouldn't mind believing that after their hard fought 6-5 victory over Cal State Dominguez, the team deserves a vacation.

It won't be all fun and games when the Bruins (1-0) travel to the islands. Starting today, UCLA will play a three-game series against the Rainbows (5-0) that will be used to determine the progress of many freshmen and a stable lineup.

UCLA head coach Gary Adams will implement several batting lineups to figure out which players can provide the Bruins with the most runs.

"We're going to play different combinations in our games against Hawaii," Adams said. "We may mix it up a bit based on the health of some of he people, but basically we're not going to go with the same nine guys in the three games."

Senior catcher Casey Cloud will start today, but with three more catchers on the roster, Adams will continue to rotate several players at that position.

Left field is another position where several players will be tested out in the early season. True-freshman Matt Pearl started on Saturday, but freshman Bill Scott and sophomore Michael Hynes will both get shots to claim the left field spot.

Pitching-wise, sophomore Rob Henkel will start on Thursday, with freshman Chad Cislak following on Friday and sophomore Jon Reightley finishing off on Saturday.

Although they are not expected to pitch over five innings with the season having only started and the strategy being to slowly build up their arm strength, Adams believes that each of these pitchers should be able to throw complete games within the next three weeks.

The Rainbows may prove a worthy test for the young Bruin pitchers as Hawaii is batting .335 and average 11 runs per game.

Hawaii catcher Lars Hansen leads the way with a .538 batting average and 12 RBIs. Junior lefthander Troy Yosimasu leads the starters with a 3.65 ERA and 10 strikeouts in 12.1 innings of work.