Molly Flowers throws a pitch for the Maine Black Bears during game one of a doubleheader Saturday against UMBC. Photo by Chris Lessner.
ORONO- The Maine Black Bear softball team split an America East doubleheader with visiting UMBC Saturday at Kessock Field and won two out of three on the weekend in the final games of the regular season.
Maine won the series by virtue of a five inning 11-0 win Friday afternoon and took the first game of the doubleheader Saturday by a score of 6-0.
Molly Flowers pitched her third no hitter of the season in the opening game Saturday. Flowers (10-10) allowed just one base runner on a walk in her seven innings of work and had 12 strikeouts.
The Maine offense was sparked by Janelle Bouchard who had two hits and also knocked in a pair. Felicia Lennon also had a pair of RBI and five other Black Bears had hits.
In Saturdays second game the Retrievers got a pair of hits from Bridget O’Malley and Morgan Peyou and a solid pitching performance from Jessica Holte to salvage the doubleheader split with a 2-1 win.
UMBC (24-29, 5-11 America East) got an unearned run in the third inning before Bouchard hit a solo homer to right center, her fourth of the year, to make it 1-1 in the fourth.
Jordan Sganga would be the difference as her RBI single in the sixth provided the winning run.
Bouchard had another two hits to lead Maine as the Bears had eight hits but couldn’t rally in this one. Annie Kennedy (6-5) took the loss in the circle as she allowed two earned runs on eight hits in 5.2 innings tossed.
Maine finishes the regular season with an overall record of 25-19 and 12-5 in America East play. Maine finished second in the league standings and earned a first round bye. The Black Bears will face the winner of number three seed Albany and sixth seeded Hartford on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at Binghamton, New York. Binghamton earned the top seed in the double elimination field and the Bearcats will face either Stony Brook or UMBC on Thursday at 11 a.m.
Game One
UMBC 0 0 0 0 0 0 0- 0 0 0
MAINE 0 0 4 2 0 0 x- 6 9 0
WP- Flowers (10-10) LP- Puccio (7-5)
Left on base- UMBC 1, Maine 6
Game Two
UMBC 0 0 1 0 0 1 0- 2 9 1
MAINE 0 0 0 1 0 0 0- 1 7 1
WP- Holte (13-12) LP- Kennedy (6-5)
Left on base- UMBC 6, Maine 5
