A change of scenery worked for Brandon Haislet.

Moved from his familiar cleanup spot to sixth, Haislet's two-run double in the bottom of the fifth rallied Hawai'i past snake-bit Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 5-3, last night to give the Rainbows a non-conference baseball doubleheader sweep before 880 at Les Murakami Stadium.

The Rainbows (18-8) won the opener, 10-3. The Panthers (0-12) have dropped 13 in a row including last year's elimination loss in the Horizon League tournament.

"It doesn't matter where you go in this lineup," Haislet said. "You always have your job you need to do. It just depends on what's the situation you come up in. You gotta find a way to get that job done when it comes up to you."

Haislet was 2 for 3 and had a bases-loaded walk in the sixth that provided the Rainbows with an insurance run in the seven-inning nightcap. He was 2 for 5 with an RBI in the nine-inning opener in which he hit cleanup.

"He hasn't been seeing the ball well, hasn't been getting off good swings, so we just bumped him down a little bit, try to give him a different look," UH coach Mike Trapasso said. "I'm happy for him. He came through with a big hit for us in the sixth hole."

The Rainbows struggled with Milwaukee starter Mike Rauwerdink, whose two runs allowed through four innings were unearned.

"He'd throw his fastball in and out and then get his breaking ball over," Haislet said. "The more pitches you can command, the better pitcher you can be."

Tyler Davis (3-0) pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings of relief for starter Joshua Schneider, who went 4 1/3 innings, allowing three runs on eight hits. Schneider allowed a one-out single to Jesse Hart followed by a double by Rob Brockel to put runners at second and third, and was replaced by Davis. With the infield drawn in, Nick Wicsher reached on a single to short, as the runners held to load the bases. But Shawn Wozniak grounded to second for a force at second that allowed Milwaukee to take a 3-2 lead and put runners at the corners with Dan Buchholz at the plate.

Davis escaped further damage with his fake pick-off move to third to catch Wozniak leaning the wrong way. Brockel then broke for home, but first baseman Kris Sanchez fired to catcher Kevin Fujii, who chased Brockel and tagged him returning to third for the final out. Although it was the third time this season Davis has executed the play, it also was symbolic of the Panthers' struggles during their losing skid.

"We just let 'em off the hook with a mental error," Milwaukee first-year coach Scott Doffek said. "He doesn't have to throw another pitch to get out of the jam. That's the kind of stuff that kills you.

"We're swimming upstream right now. The last couple games have been a microcosm of the whole season. We're playing good teams, but we're beating ourselves in the middle of the game. Until we do that, we'll have a hard time beating this quality of a team."

Hawai'i's first two runs of the game were unearned because of errors, one that prolonged an inning and the other on a poor throw back to the infield.

Trailing 3-2, Rauwerdink (0-4) struck out the first two batters to start the fifth. But he walked Kevin Macdonald on five pitches and gave up a single to Sanchez to put runners at first and second. Haislet then drilled a fastball to dead center to score the runners and give UH a 4-3 lead.

"It was a fastball high over the plate," Haislet said. "You always want to be aggressive to drive the runs in."

The Rainbows added a run in the sixth on Haislet's bases-loaded walk, but they also left the bases loaded for the third time in the game. The stranded runners were looking like they would haunt UH in the top of the seventh when Davis struggled with command of his slider and loaded the bases on three consecutive singles with two outs. But after showing Wozniak, whose solo homer in the first gave Milwaukee a 2-1 lead, mainly fastballs, Davis came back with a slider to get him swinging to end the game.

"I was throwing some decent pitches, but they were sitting on my slider," Davis said. "I threw him (Wozniak) so many fastballs in a row, I was thinking maybe this is when I want to throw (the slider), so I decided to throw it on my last pitch right there."

Rauwerdink was charged with four runs (two earned), seven hits and three walks with two strikeouts in five innings.

The Panthers out-hit the Rainbows, 12-8. Hart led the way, batting 4 for 4.

In the opener, the Panthers also posted double-digit hits, but came up short on runs.

Mark Rodrigues (6-1) pitched seven innings for UH, allowing three runs and 10 hits with one strikeout. Cameron Wheeler threw two hitless innings to finish off the Panthers.

Derek DuPree, moved from leadoff to second in the batting order, drove in three runs, two on a double in a four-run second inning. Jon Hee batted leadoff, batting 2 for 4 in the opener and 0 for 3 with a hit batsman in the nightcap.

"It's just the situation where Dupes is more suited for the two hole," Trapasso said. "It's where he likes it. He's more comfortable there. He likes it there. He was there all last year and hit .300 for us. Jon takes more pitches. It's not like any of them are base-running threats right now with Dupes' knee. Jon will work the count a little bit and we wanted to see what it looked like."

Milwaukee took a 2-0 lead off Rodrigues in the top of the second, but UH came back with four in the bottom of the frame against starter Tim Hoy (0-1), who lasted just two innings. DuPree's two-run double came after one run scored on an error and on Landon Hernandez's RBI single. Hernandez was 3 for 3 with a walk and three runs.

The Rainbows blew open the game with a four-run fourth against reliever Brandon Duffy. DuPree's squeeze was followed by a two-run single by Justin Frash and an RBI single from Kris Sanchez.

Hawai'i added two in the eighth on a based-loaded double play grounder by DuPree and RBI single by Haislet.

Kyle Silver was 4 for 4 for the Panthers.

The series concludes at 1:05 p.m. today. Hawai'i will send right-hander Matt Daly (1-1), who struggled in relief in Friday's win, while Milwaukee will start right-hander Dan Luczak (0-3).

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.