It's common at this time of year to see baseball teams from northern states migrating south. But the southern-most Division I team in the union is going the other way.

Hawai'i left last night for a four-game road trip to Minneapolis. Weather forecasts have temperatures in the 20s with a chance of snow the next four days. Though the weather outside might be frightful, the games will be played indoors at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, home of the Minnesota Twins.

"It's going to be exciting," UH junior third baseman Vinnie Catricala said. "It's going to be cold outside, but it's room temperature. I heard it's tough with the roof, being the same color as the ball. Other than that, I'm excited."

The trip also will be special for freshman center fielder Kolten Wong. He was drafted by the Twins in the 16th round last June out of Kamehameha-Hawai'i. After negotiations went down to the signing deadline of Aug. 15, the Twins still didn't meet his demands.

"I want to show them what I'm really about," Wong said. "They drafted me, but they didn't really see me play before."

This trip comes during hard economic times, but it was planned three years ago and this year was the earliest opening when scheduling began in 2006, Trapasso said.

"If we had to set this up three months ago, or even six months ago, we wouldn't have even done it because of the way things are with the economy," UH coach Mike Trapasso said. "This is, historically, one of the better tournaments in college baseball."

The Rainbows (3-1) will play in the Minnesota Golden Gophers-hosted Dairy Queen Classic that runs Friday through Sunday, but they open the trip with a single game that is not part of the tournament against Minnesota (2-1) tomorrow at noon, Hawai'i time.

Hawai'i opens the four-team, round-robin tournament 8:15 a.m. Friday against Washington (1-2) of the Pac-10. The Rainbows then play UC Santa Barbara (3-1) of the Big West, at 8 a.m. Saturday and close the tournament against the Golden Gophers at 11 a.m. Sunday.

UH is coming off losing 3 of 4 to UC Irvine, which moved from No. 9 to No. 5 in Baseball America's top 25. But the Rainbows avoided a sweep by taking Sunday's series finale, 7-4, behind freshman pitcher Matt Sisto.

"I think winning that last game gave us momentum for this tournament," Catricala said.

Trapasso said the same four starting pitchers in the UCI series will start on the road trip. Jayson Kramer will pitch tomorrow against UM and Nate Klein will start Friday's tournament opener against Washington. Trapasso hasn't decided if he will switch the order of Sisto and Alex Capaul, who started the third game of the UCI series.

Although he didn't pitch in the UCI series, Jared Alexander (elbow) will travel with the team, but Trapasso still isn't certain if he will get in any of the games. Outfielder Matt Roquemore, who started the season opener, will not make the trip. He tweaked a hamstring in the season opener. With that, Wong, who also can play second base, will stay in center field, Trapasso said. Shane Hoey and Ryan Morford will continue to share time at second base.