When he saw his program's practice field at Ke‘ehi Lagoon covered in six inches of rainwater, Hawai‘i Pacific baseball head coach Dane Fujinaka knew a major shakeup was coming to his team's schedule.
The Kona Low storms that battered the Islands in March and April certainly impacted the sports calendar. HPU's four-game Pacific West Conference home series against Westmont at Hans L'Orange Park, originally set to begin on March 13, got rained out and postponed.
Instead of making those games up on O‘ahu, it was determined that the Sharks would sandwich three makeup games against Westmont on the road, adding the contests to a 10-day California roadtrip at Biola and Vanguard. What resulted was a gauntlet of 11 road games in 10 days.
The Sharks passed their toughest test of the season, going 7-4 in those game and returning home to O‘ahu in one piece. HPU (25-19, 23-15 PacWest) is currently third in the PacWest standings and enters its final series of the regular season at Hawai‘i-Hilo (16-27, 15-23 PacWest) with doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday. The Sharks can guarantee themselves a spot in the four-team conference tournament, set to take place from May 6-8 in Santa Barbara, Calif., with a series win. If HPU were to win all four games, the Sharks would clinch the No. 2 seed.
HPU's prime position in the PacWest race can be attributed to the resolve it showed during its extended road trip, which Fujinaka called "the toughest stretch of baseball I've been a part of since I've been here, for sure."
"You mix in a couple flights and hotels and some long nights and bus rides," Fujinaka told Aloha State Daily. "Super proud of them. They're just focused on day-to-day and pitch-to-pitch, which we talk about a lot here. I think it helped them kind of move on from some of those losses early on. Again, just really proud of them, how they were able to bounce back quickly, which they needed to in order to be in the spot that we're in."
Only four of the PacWest's 12 teams make the conference tournament, which was introduced in 2023. If HPU were to make the field again in 2026, it would mark the third straight year the Sharks were able to do so under Fujinaka.
After losing a pair of All-Americans in Bronson Rivera and Noah Blythe, the Sharks appear to have developed another one of their own in third baseman Tyler Arnold. As a sophomore, he's already shattered the program's career home run record with 29 and counting. In the team's home finale against Chaminade, he belted three homers in a 19-1 win on April 22.
"He's a special player," Fujinaka said of Arnold. "I feel very fortunate to be able to coach him. He shows up with energy and enthusiasm every single day. In the fall, I told him there's something special about you. You just look like you're having a ton of fun when you're out here, you look like a 10-year-old playing playing baseball. And to me, that's what makes him really good and will always make him really good. He never lets the moment get too big for him.
"He's matured a ton. To be able to take on the role of, 'Hey, you're the guy, and you're going to get pitched differently.' He's done a great job handling that. He's a tremendous person, very special teammate, hard worker, just checks all the boxes off the field and the makeup part of it, and obviously the talent speaks for itself. He's an unbelievable baseball player."
Arnold wasn't aware he broke the program's home run record until seeing the team's social media accounts post about it later that night. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he would even be playing college baseball to begin with after receiving scant college interest as a high schooler in San Diego.
HPU hitting coach Richard Higa first noticed Arnold at a high school showcase. After Fujinaka and Arnold had preliminary talks, Arnold decided HPU was the school for him. It didn't take long for Fujinaka and Higa to realize what they had in Arnold, who won a starting spot as a freshman and has blossomed into a star as a sophomore.
"I love this program. We make it work with what we have, and that's what I'm grateful for: having the opportunity to still keep playing baseball in college," Arnold told ASD. "I couldn't have imagined (breaking HPU's home run record) one bit, but the work all these coaches have put in for me and this program, it just makes me feel grateful for them giving me the chance to come play baseball here, and being able to do and accomplish all the things that I have."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
