Black Bears offense backs Gambardella as Maine baseball wins first America East Title in 12 years

Published by %s
May 27, 2023

The University of Maine baseball team only needed one game on Saturday afternoon to win their first America East Championship since 2011. Gianni Gambardella became the second straight Black Bear starting pitcher to go a quality 8.0 innings, and his team backed him with four homeruns in a 6-1 victory over Binghamton at Bearcat Baseball Complex in Vestal, New York. Maine goes 3-0 in the tournament and will find out Monday where they’re headed and who they’re facing in the NCAA Regionals.

It only took one batter in the bottom of the first inning to give Maine the lead for good, as Jake Rainess took a 3-2 pitch from Binghamton starter Justin Rosner and crushed it deep over the fence in left field for a solo homerun. Ryan Turenne made it 2-0 with an RBI single in the second that turned out to be the game winner to score Nick White who had led off with a double. Jeremiah Jenkins launched his 20th homer of the season to right field in the third inning, a solo shot. Jake Marquez and Quinn McDaniel capped off the Black Bears scoring in the fourth and seventh respectively. Marquez hit a two-run homerun and McDaniel had one of the solo variety. The longball for Marquez was his first of the year. That was more than enough for Gambardella. The freshman right hander only allowed two Binghamton runners to get into scoring position during his outing and retired the side in order four times. That is after a solid outing by Caleb Leys on Friday afternoon in the semifinal win over UMBC.

Gambardella (6-3) had a final line of no runs on three hits with two walks and two strikeouts in 8.0 innings. Justin Baeyens pitched the ninth in a non-save situation and allowed a solo homerun for the only ding against the Maine pitching staff on the day. White had two hits as five different Black Bears had RBI. Rosner (1-3) took the loss for Binghamton giving up three runs on four hits in 3.0 innings. Kevin Gsell had the ninth inning solo homerun off Baeyens, as the #3 seeded Bearcats who were the defending champions end their season with a record of 29-23. Maine is now 32-19 and have won seven consecutive games. They’ll find out their location, time, and opponent during the NCAA Baseball Selection Show on Monday at 12 p.m. They last appeared in the NCAA Tournament in 2011 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where they had a win over Florida International and lost to the UNC Tarheels and James Madison University.

Recap and photo by Chris Lessner/Videos and championship photo courtesy of Maine Athletics 

Photo- Maine shortstop Jake Rainess at bat in a game earlier this season at Mahaney Diamond in Orono. Rainess had a leadoff  homerun on Saturday as the Black Bears won the America East Championship with a 6-1 victory over Binghamton 

 

 

Box Score

BING     0  0  0    0  0  0    0  0  1-  1  4  0

UMAI    1  1  1    2  0  0    1  0  x-  6  7  1

WP- Gambardella (6-3)  LP- Rosner (1-3)

2B- Maine: White/Binghamton: none

HR- Maine: Rainess (16), Jenkins (20), Marquez (1), McDaniel (16)/Binghamton: Gsell (8)

SB- Maine: Plante/Binghamton: none

LOB- Maine: 4/Binghamton: 6

E- Maine: Marquez/Binghamton: none

Time- 2:00

 

 

 

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