ORONO- Damon Gaither homered twice, and Caleb Leys continued his strong season on the mound on Saturday afternoon as Maine beat UMBC 9-1 in game two of a three game America East baseball series at Mahaney Diamond.
Senior second baseman Myles Sargent, who had seven RBI in a 16-12 Black Bears loss in the opening game of the series on Friday, continued his hot hitting with an RBI single in the second inning for an early 1-0 lead. Drew Reynolds extended the advantage with an RBI single in the third. Maine broke it open in the fourth inning by putting up five runs. Evan Menzel and Aidan Bardi began the frame with singles, before Sargent followed with his second RBI of the day with another single. Gaither then took one deep over the fence in leftfield for a three-run homerun. After Chris Bear struckout, Brody Rasmussen also homered to left to make it 7-0. Gaither later added his second homer, a two-run no doubt shot to left in the seventh. Leys was fantastic once again only allowing one earned run in 7.0 innings to lower his season ERA to 2.54.
Sargent, Reynolds, Gaither, Menzel, and Payton Whitehead all had two hits for Maine. Gaither drove in five runs with his pair of homeruns and Sargent added two RBI. Leys (4-1) gave up a total of five hits while walking three and striking out nine. Sebastian Holt pitched a scoreless 2.0 innings in relief of Leys allowing one hit. Danny Wyatt, who had six RBI on Friday, had three hits for UMBC. Eddie Sargent (1-1) took the loss on the mound as he was touched up for seven runs on 10 hits in 3.1 innings. The Retrievers fall to 15-17 and 7-7 in America East. The Black Bears (15-21, 9-5 in the conference) look for the series win in the weekend finale on Sunday at 12 p.m.
