The University of Maine baseball and softball teams are finishing up their annual non-conference spring trips to open the season. The baseball team is in Maryland to battle the Terps this weekend before single game trips to Virginia and Washington, D.C., while softball is in California for one more week before heading back East.
The baseball team is entering the three game series at Maryland this weekend at 3-6. Maine has two wins over Pittsburgh and a single win over Winthrop in the finale last weekend in South Carolina. Junior second baseman Quinn McDaniel has led the way offensively so far hitting .480 with three homeruns and five RBI. He also owns an OPS of 1.643 and has scored 18 runs. Redshirt junior Jake Rainess, sophomore Jeremiah Jenkins, sophomore Myles Sargent, senior Connor Goodman, and graduate outfielder Jeff Mejia are all hitting over .300 as well. Rainess and Jenkins are tied for the team lead with four homeruns, with 12 and 14 RBI respectively. Goodman has 15 driven in to lead all batters. Sophomore Colin Fitzgerald, junior Noah Lewis, and sophomore Caleb Leys have started three games each on the mound. Fitzgerald doesn’t have a record in his starts but has a 1.80 ERA allowing three earned runs and 14 hits with 15 strikeouts in 15.0 innings pitched. After the games in College Park, Maine plays single games at George Mason and George Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. Next Friday April 17, they’ll open up America East play at UMBC. The home opener is March 31 also in conference play at Mahaney Diamond against UMass-Lowell. The Black Bears are coming off a 27-22 season, where they went 21-9 in league games losing their first two games in the double elimination America East Tournament to UMass-Lowell and NJIT that they hosted in Orono.
The softball team (4-10) is playing in the Bulldog Classic this weekend hosted by Fresno State in Fresno, California. The games Friday were rained out, but they’ll play New Mexico State and Utah Tech on Saturday and then Utah Tech again for a single game on Sunday. Maine has wins this season over George Washington, two over Western Illinois, and also one over the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga but are mired currently in a five game losing streak. Offensively, graduate student Kelby Drews and senior Izzy Nieblas have led the way thus far. Drews is hitting .343 with four RBI, and Nieblas is at .313 and leads the team with eight runs driven in. Senior Caitlyn Fallon has three of the four Maine wins in the circle (3-5), with a 5.00 ERA in 28.0 innings (seven starts). The last game in California is on Saturday, March 18th against Mount St. Mary’s. The America East openers are the following weekend March 25-26 at Binghamton in Vestal, New York. The home opener is also in conference play at their newly renovated Kessock Field on April 1 against Albany. The Black Bears are coming off a disappointing 8-37 season in 2022 (4-12 in America East), and were knocked out in two games at the conference tournament that was held at Binghamton.
Story by Chris Lessner
