The University of Maine baseball team guaranteed themselves another America East series win by scoring five runs in the seventh inning on Saturday afternoon for a 7-5 win over the Albany Great Danes at Mahaney Diamond in Orono.
After a 4-2 Maine win in the opener on Friday, both teams struggled to find offense through most of the game on Saturday. Will Binder led off the game for Albany in the top of the first with a solo homerun to center field. That score stood until the fourth when the Black Bears tied it on a two out RBI double by Jake Marquez. In the five run bottom of the seventh, Marquez started it off with a double and Jordan Schulefand followed with an infield single. Connor Goodman tried to sacrifice bunt to move the runners up, but instead got himself a bunt an infield RBI hit that scored Marquez for a 2-1 lead. Albany recorded the next two outs, but Joe Bramanti kept the inning alive with a two-run homer to left. It was the 14th long ball of the season for Bramanti, his first since April 23. Scout Knotts would then triple, while Jeremiah Jenkins and Ryan Turenne both walked to load the bases. Jeff Mejia brought in two more with a double to center to extend it to 6-1. The Great Danes bounced right back against reliever Noah Lewis in the eighth with three straight singles by John Daly, Brad Malm, and Jason Bottari to load the bases with no outs. After Will Feil struckout, Michael Whalen was hit by a pitch to score Daly and Josh Loeffler hit a RBI sacrifice fly. Lewis helped the hosts get out of further trouble with he struckout Chris Fisher swinging. Quinn McDaniel made it 7-3 with an RBI sacrifice fly in the last of the eighth inning. The guests weren’t finished though, putting up another rally in the ninth against Leif Bigelow. Binder would walk, Marti singled, and Daly hit a two-run double to cut the deficit in half with still no outs. Bigelow ended it though retiring the next three hitters as Malm lined out, Bottari struckout swinging, and Feil popped out to first base. Maine is now 26-16 overall, 21-5 in America East. The Bears have now won seven out of the nine conference series they’ve played on the season, and will be going for their sixth sweep on Sunday.
Freshman left hander Caleb Leys started on the mound for Maine and got a no-decision allowing one run on five hits with three walks and six strikeouts in 5.0 innings. Lewis (3-2) picked up the victory out of the bullpen. Schulefand had three hits, with Bramanti and Marquez adding two each. Binder, Daly, and Malm had two hits a piece in the loss for Albany, who falls to 20-23 (9-17 in conference play). Cregg Scherrer (2-4) took the loss on the hill allowing six runs on nine hits in 6.2 innings. The Black Bears will attempt to finish a season sweep over the Great Danes on Sunday with first pitch scheduled for 12 p.m.
BOX
ALB 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2- 5 11 2
UME 0 0 0 1 0 0 5 1 x- 7 11 0
WP- Lewis (3-2) LP- Scherrer (2-4)
HR- Bramanti (14)
3B- Knotts, Feil
2B- Marquez 2, Mejia, Binder, Daly
LOB- Albany 10, Maine 9
