The Maine baseball team returned home on Saturday to open up a four game America East series with a doubleheader against Hartford at Mahaney Diamond in Orono. The Black Bears opened the day with another dominant pitching performance from Nicholas Sinacola in an 11-0 win, before the Hawks returned the favor in game two for an afternoon split with a 7-0 victory.
The Maine offense was on full display in game one. In a scoreless game in the third inning Joe Bramanti provided all the offense they would need by crushing a grand slam to left center field, before Quinn McDaniel followed that with a solo homerun that snuck over the fence down the left field line. Bramanti, McDaniel, and Sean Lawlor had two hits each. Sinacola did the rest, improving to 6-0 on the season. He allowed no runs on two hits with one walk and 10 more strikeouts in 6.0 innings. He now has a 1.19 earned run average with 74 strikeouts in 37.2 innings pitched, and batters are only hitting .159 off the junior right hander.
Hartford did all their damage in game two over the middle three innings in the fourth, fifth, and sixth to take the win. Drew DeMartino, Derek Tenney, and Nik Pagan had two hits each for the Hawks. Nicholas Dombkowski shut down the Maine bats to pick up the pitching win allowing no runs on five hits with two walks and 10 strikeouts over 7.0 innings. Noah Lewis (2-2) would take the loss on the hill for the Black Bears yielding three runs over 5.0 innings. Maine is now 12-9, 7-6 in America East. Hartford is 8-10 all in conference play. The teams play two more games Sunday beginning at 12 p.m.
