ORONO- The UMass-Lowell Riverhawks scored seven times over the course of the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings on Friday afternoon and defeated Maine 8-5 in the America East baseball home opener for the Black Bears at Mahaney Diamond.
Maine had a 3-1 lead after five innings on a Drew Reynolds RBI single and sacrifice RBI groundouts by Payton Whitehead and Zach Martin, before the Riverhawks tied it in the sixth. Alex Luccini tripled in a run, and Brandon Fish had an RBI single to even the score at 3-3. UMass-Lowell jumped ahead for good on an RBI groundout by Brayden Cali in the seventh inning, part of a three run frame for the guests.
Dean O’Neill had three hits in the loss for Maine. Brody Rasmussen, Evan Menzel, and Martin added two hits a piece. Martin knocked in two runs. Junior Colin Fitzgerald (4-3) suffered the defeat on the mound allowing six runs (five earned) on nine hits with two walks and four strikeouts in 6.2 innings. Fish led UMass-Lowell with two hits and two RBI, while Dylan Bedder (2-1) picked up the win on the hill in relief. The Riverhawks improve to 12-16 and 4-3 in America East. The Black Bears fell to 8-20 and 3-4 in the conference. Game two of the series is scheduled for 12 p.m. on Saturday.
