As disheartening as it was to lose a series at Fresno State last weekend, the Hawai'i baseball team will need to play with the same intensity and urgency it had then when it takes on hot Louisiana Tech in a three-game Western Athletic Conference series starting tomorrow at Les Murakami Stadium.

"Right now, we're going to have to go into each series with a sense of urgency that we need to play better than how we have," UH coach Mike Trapasso said. "If we go out and play like we did against Fresno last weekend, we're going to have a chance to win every series. We just have to do that. If we get that done, we're going to be right back in the race."

The fourth-place Rainbows (25-15 overall, 6-6 WAC) trail first-place Louisiana Tech (29-14, 9-3) by a series worth of games. Fresno State (8-4), which took 2 of 3 from UH over the weekend, is second. Nevada (7-5), which lost 2 of 3 here last month, is third.

Last year, the Bulldogs took two games from the Rainbows at UH. Rain postponed the third game, but being that it was a home-and-home series, the Rainbows were able to make it up on their trip to Ruston, La. It turned out to be blessing because UH got hot toward the end of the season, while LaTech labored. Hawai'i swept a four-game series there.

Trapasso is hoping his Rainbows get hot now and maintain it the rest of the way.

"We definitely had a couple of games that we lost that are disappointing," Trapasso said. "Regardless of what happens, our focal point is to win now, but it's still going to end up coming down to the tournament for that automatic berth. The idea is to peak at the right time. We'd like to peak now and try to sustain it."

Winning the WAC's regular season championship only gives the team the top seed of the tournament and an opening round game against the sixth seed. The tournament champion gets an automatic NCAA regional berth. Last year, WAC champion Fresno State and runner-up Hawai'i were the only two conference representatives at the regionals. The Rainbows made it as an at-large.

Unlike last year, this series is it for the two schools farthest apart in the WAC. There's no home-and-home series this season.

"You have to treat all the series the same," Trapasso said. "There's no question LaTech is playing very good and is probably the most talented team in our league.

"It's going to be a challenge for us. I've always said with challenges come opportunities. It's also a great opportunity for us to go out and play well and get back in the hunt"

The Rainbows will use their same rotation they had in Fresno with Mark Rodrigues pitching the opener, Joshua Schneider Saturday and Ian Harrington Sunday.

The Bulldogs will use sophomore Luke Burnett, Ryan Rupert and Dylan Mosely. LaTech coach Wade Simoneaux was unsure of the order because Burnett has not been feeling well, Simoneaux said.

EMERGENCY PLANS

In wake of the events at Virginia Tech this week, Trapasso said the coaches have a system where they can contact players quickly to account for their whereabouts in case of an emergency.

"We were just talking about that (Tuesday)," Trapasso said. "We have all (the players') cell phone numbers in all of our cell phones. We know where they all live, on and off campus. Something like that definitely brings to mind the need to be able to account for everyone if something terrible like that happens here."

While the staff does have contact phone numbers of the players' parents, Trapasso said it is considering a system that could contact them, too, in an expeditious manner.

"We've never had anything set up in the past," he said. "But I think in the future, we need to get something. We have all the parents' permanent addresses and phone numbers."

Obviously, Trapasso was moved by the tragedy.

"It definitely makes you think about what's really important," he said. "It puts any struggles that you may be having on the baseball field in the proper perspective."

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.