Instead of the thrower, the pitcher Matt Daly showed up yesterday.

The junior right-hander pitched a season-long 7 2/3 scoreless innings and Hawai'i stifled Nevada, 4-0, yesterday to take three of four in the Western Athletic Conference series.

"He pitched today," UH batterymate Landon Hernandez said. "He wasn't the normal flame-thrower Matt Daly. He didn't try to overthrow."

His outing was the longest since a one-hit, complete-game win at UH-Hilo last season. In that game, he took a no-hitter through 8 1/3. Yesterday, he had a no-hitter through six before the left-handed hitting Shaun Kort flared a single into a confluence of fielders in shallow right-center.

"I knew what was going on," Daly said of his no-hit bid. "The basehit that he had was kind of frustrating. It was off the end of the bat, but it's aluminum bats and there's nothing you can do."

He allowed a line single with two out in the eighth and walked his fifth batter before giving way to freshman left-hander Sam Spangler, who struck out Kort to end the threat.

Daly (5-2) departed having used 112 pitches. Because of command issues in previous starts, he could never finish seven innings. He said he worked on an adjustment in his motion the night before in the bullpen. He used only his fastball, slider and changeup, never once going to his curveball. It was the kind of performance the Rainbows needed against a team that entered the series with the league's highest batting average at .321.

"That was big for what was on the line today for him to throw that way," UH coach Mike Trapasso said.

Although percentage points behind, the Rainbows (19-22 overall, 11-9 WAC) pulled even with the Wolf Pack (22-17, 9-7) in the games-back column. Both trail division-leader Fresno State (13-3) by four games and second-place Sacramento State (10-5) by 2 1/2 games.

Nevada starter Derek Achelpohl (1-2) kept the Rainbows off the board until the fifth by keeping his pitches low, netting seven grounders for outs, including a double play, in the first four innings. But in the fifth, a lead-off walk to Kevin Macdonald, single by Vinnie Catricala and walk to Greg Garcia loaded the bases to set up Hernandez's sacrifice fly to right to break the tie. It was the first flyout allowed by Achelpohl at the time.

"I'm just looking for something up the zone so you can elevate it," Hernandez said. "The count was 1-0, so I was sitting dead-red fastball. I was just trying to put something to center field."

Hernandez's fly was deep enough to allow Catricala to take third, where he scored when Sean Montplaisir grounded out to first on a hit-and-run.

Nevada threatened in the seventh after Kort's flare single, walk to Terry Walsh and sacrifice by Mike Hale put the tying run on second with one out. But Daly got ahead quickly on Tyson Jaquez and struck him out, as well as Kevin Rodland to keep the Wolf Pack off the board.

The Rainbows chased Achelpohl in the seventh after he got the first two batters out. Hernandez walked and took second on Montplaisir's single. After falling behind 1-0 to the left-handed hitting Derek DuPree, the right-handed Achelpohl was pulled for the left-handed Jacob Kaup. DuPree walked to load the bases and the right-handed Stephen Bautista came in to face the right-handed hitting Jon Hee, who lined a two-run single to left to pad UH's lead to 4-0.

"I was just focusing on getting a ground ball somewhere," Daly said. "If one run scores, that's OK. But as soon as I got ahead of the guy, I had confidence, had him in a tough situation. That's when I rared back and hit the fastball on the outer half."

Jayson Kramer pitched a scoreless ninth with the help of a nice game-ending double play turned by first baseman Macdonald.

"Today, everyone was into it," Hee said. "Matt pitched wonderful for us and gave us a chance."

Hawai'i leaves tomorrow night to resume a WAC series starting Friday at Louisiana Tech (2-16), which has lost 11 in a row.