HONOLULU — The best option for the Hawaii baseball team to obstruct Oregon State was to put up Walls.

Freshman right-hander Cooper Walls took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and combined with two relievers on a three-hitter in UH’s 5-0 win over the No. 7 Beavers on Sunday afternoon.

Walls helped inject the Rainbow Warriors (29-16) with some much-needed swagger coming off wins of the lopsided (Friday) and narrow (Saturday) varieties against the Beavers (34-12).

“Whoever steps on that field, whoever's in the batter’s box, same thing every time,” Walls told Spectrum News. “Confidence. I feel like I can get them out.”

Walls (3-3), a 6-foot-5 native of Carlsbad, Calif., mixed his fastball, slider and curveball effectively over five frames. When coach Rich Hill went to the bullpen to start the sixth, the ‘Bows were just as effective. Liam O’Brien tossed three hitless innings and Isaiah Magdaleno worked around a hit and a walk in the ninth.

“Cooper Walls, we've always thought that he's just a future ace,” Hill said. “You saw why today, two times around the lineup, and then Liam O'Brien, one of the leaders in the country, then Mags, an elite closer.”

It was the third win over a ranked team this season for UH, and first win over a top-10 team in the Hill era. The last time UH beat one was at No. 2 Vanderbilt in 2020, a matter of days before that season was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Not since 1995 had UH sold out three straight games at Les Murakami Stadium. Hill, who got ejected in the second inning Saturday, made it the distance this time.

“Our fans just give us so much energy here, and that's why we scheduled these guys — to treat the best fans in the country to quality baseball, and we were able to get the W for them,” Hill said.

Catcher Konnor Palmeira launched a third-inning homer, his first for UH since his freshman season in 2021. The Kahului native played the next two years at Everett Community College and Cal State Bakersfield.

Leadoff hitter Matthew Miura went 2-for-3 with a two-RBI single to center in the fourth. Ben Zeigler-Namoa had a sacrifice fly RBI in the first Jared Quandt singled in a run in the fifth.

Hill said he’d start Cory Ronan in Monday’s 6:35 p.m. series finale as UH goes for a series split. Ethan Thomas and Magdaleno are two of “a full arsenal of guys” that will be ready out of the bullpen, Hill said.

OSU tied a season low in hits and was shut out for the second time (then-No. 12 UC Irvine). Shortstop Aiva Arquette, a Saint Louis graduate from Kailua and an elite MLB Draft prospect, went 0-for-4 with a strikeout, his second straight day without a hit.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.