The Maine Black Bears baseball team got an outstanding complete game effort from former Bangor Ram Justin Courtney to take game one of a doubleheader against Manhatten Friday 3-1. The Jaspers returned the favor with a 6-4 win in the second game at Mahaney Diamond in Orono.
In game one, Tyler Schwanz had an RBI groundout in the bottom of the fourth to give the Bears a 1-0 lead. After the visitors tied it in the fifth on an RBI hit from Brendan Bisset, Schwanz reached on an error in the bottom of the sixth allowing a run to score to put Maine back up 2-1. The Bears added an insurance run when Hernan Sardinas added an RBI sacrifice fly in the seventh.
Courtney (3-3) was dealing once again going the entire nine innings, allowing just one earned run, seven hits, with no walks and seven strikeouts. Courtney threw 106 pitches. Tom Cosgrove (1-5) was the tough luck loser for Manhatten, going eight innings, allowing three runs, none earned, five hits, one walk, and five strikeouts.
In game two, Maine fell behind 3-0 after three innings, before rallying to take a 4-3 lead with a four run bottom of the fourth.
Manhatten (9-21) wouldn’t let this one slip away as Michael Pfenninger hit an RBI triple to make it 4-4 in the top of the sixth, followed by a Brendan Bisset RBI single gave the Jaspers back the lead at 5-4. Pfenninger added an RBI single in the top of the seventh to make it 6-4 and finish off the scoring, allowing Manhatten to split the non conference doubleheader.
Connor Johnson (2-3) took the loss in relief for Maine, going 0.2 innings, allowing two runs, both earned, two hits, one walk, with one strikeout. T.J. Stuart (1-1) pitched a perfect fifth inning to earn the win in relief for the Jaspers with two strikeouts. Shawn Kanwisher pitched the last two innings, also perfect, to pick up his fifth save.
Maine (10-17) will face Manhatten once again Saturday for another non conference doubleheader. Game times are scheduled for 12 and 3:15 p.m.
