KE‘EHI LAGOON — Before practice began, members of the Hawai‘i Pacific University baseball team formed a human assembly line at the end of a truck, where players took turns passing down dozens of containers of turface to each other. The 50-pound bags of clay will help maintain the infield condition of their two homes: Ke‘ehi Lagoon for practices and Hans L‘Orange Park for games.
Coaches were scattered across the team's practice field watering the infield dirt and mowing the outfield grass, where a Skyline route passing through the area could be seen in the distance.
By the time the baseballs and fungo bats joined the players on the field, more work was headed toward the Sharks. Like their athletic counterparts on campus, days are full for members of the team.
"It's definitely a grind," senior outfielder and team captain Noah Hata said. "We lift in the morning, there's a 5 a.m. group, a 5:45 group, and then you get some breakfast after that, and then you're straight to class. That normally takes you to like 12, and then straight to the field, and we're getting after it. Then eat, do homework, sleep and repeat. But, man, we're playing the game we love so the grind becomes a little easier."
Under head coach Dane Fujinaka, the Sharks have learned to embrace the grind. The 2011 Mid-Pacific gradate spent a decade on the Mainland as a player at Sacramento State and Menlo, then as an assistant coach, where a rapid rise took him from Menlo to William Jessup to Illinois State, then the Toronto Blue Jays organization. When Hawai‘i Pacific came calling with an opportunity to become a head coach as a 28-year-old, he jumped at the opportunity.
The Sharks went 17-27 in his debut season in 2022 but have steadily improved each year. Fujinaka enters the 2026 season above .500 with a career record of 99-98, one win away from his 100th victory. Hawai‘i Pacific begins its 2026 season against Cal State Los Angeles on Friday at Hans L‘Orange Park, with first pitch set for 1 p.m.
In 2025, the Sharks went 32-22, narrowly missing an at-large NCAA Tournament bid. Others around the PacWest Conference have noticed HPU's progress. In a preseason poll released Tuesday, the Sharks were picked to finish third in the conference, even receiving a first-place vote.
"It's cool to get the recognition, but I'll be honest, I was pretty annoyed still. Seeing your name at the top is obviously the goal and what we want to see, but we haven't earned it, and we've got to go out and win to be able start the season at the top," Fujinaka told Aloha State Daily. "The good thing is everybody starts 0-0 and we've got a chance to earn it, but I think it's nice to see us starting to climb each and every year.
"The guys are really hungry with how close we got last year. I know the returners have put in the work this offseason because of that. It lit the fire under them. For the new guys, it's a little bit harder for them to grasp kind how close we were last year because they didn't experience it, but I thought the returners and the leaders, with Noah Hata being our captain, did a really good job setting the tone and setting the standard for those guys, so that they know what to expect and what the standard is come this season."
With the season quickly approaching, Fujinaka and his staff have already decided on an opening day starter: Gavin Pacheco, a junior transfer from the University of San Francisco.
At the plate, the Sharks will have to replace the hitting production of program single-season home run record holder Bronson Rivera (19) and Noah Blythe, the 2025 PacWest Player of the Year, who hit .443 with 15 home runs. In 2026, the Sharks will lean heavily on the likes of Tyler Arnold, who hit .343 with 15 home runs as a freshman in 2025, as well as Hata, a .344 hitter.
"We're not gonna pigeonhole ourselves to being one type of offense. We're gonna be a holistic offense that can slug, run, we can bunt, we can drive runners in with two outs," HPU associate head coach and hitting coach Richard Higa says. "We can manufacture runs if we need to, and we can also come back from seven, eight-run deficits. Believing in our players in that way and allowing them to free themselves to be the best version of themselves, individually, and then for myself and coach Dane, designing a lineup that could best utilize each player's skills.
"There's a funny term that was used in ʻMoneyball,ʻ how can we replace our players through the aggregate? Maybe we won't have the two All-Americans or a record-breaking home run roster (like the Sharks did in 2025), but the goal is how can we still score just as many runs or more runs?"
Fujinaka and his staff have spanned the globe for their players, which includes Kan Taguchi, a Japan native and son of former Big Leaguer So Taguchi, who hit .419 as the team's primary leadoff hitter in 2025. Additionally, the team's freshman class includes Flynn Warren, a pitcher from New Zealand. Regardless of where his players come from, once they get to campus, they'll know what to expect.
"The No. 1 thing we stress here is we're not going to make excuses about our situation, our environment. We're going to make the most of it, and we're going to dive into it and try to bring out the qualities of old things that you got to MacGyver sometimes," Fujinaka said. "It brings out creativity, it brings out hard work, brings out grittiness and toughness, and those are all things that I want our program to be about.
"Our guys, since the first day that I started here, have really embraced that. And teams and players in the past that I've talked to, it's always been the culture here, and it needs to continue to be like that if we want to continue to our success."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
