The University of Maine won their fifth consecutive America East baseball series on Saturday night, defeating the New Jersey Institute of Technology 7-5 in the rubber match of the weekend under the lights at Mahaney Diamond in Orono.
The two teams traded blows over the first three innings. After the Highlanders scored a run in their first at bat, Dean O’Neill drew a two out walk in the bottom of the first and Evan Menzel followed with a two-run homerun to leftfield to make it 2-1 Black Bears. NJIT tied it right back up in the second on a single by Ray Ortiz, before a two out solo homer to right by Payton Whitehead in last half of the frame jumped Maine back on top 3-2. Ty Sallie scored on a wild pitch in the third inning to knot it again, but the hosts then took the lead for good in the fourth on an infield RBI single by Whitehead and a fielders choice RBI by Chris Bear. The Black Bears had a chance to widen the advantage in the fifth with a 6-4 lead as they loaded the bases with no outs, but Highlanders reliever Eddie Werse came on and struckout Zach Martin, Whitehead, and Bear consecutively swinging to get out of the jam. Cole Campbell cut it to 6-5 with an RBI single in the sixth inning, and NJIT had two runners in scoring position in the eighth with two outs attempting to take the lead but freshman Tommy Martin struckout Sallie to strand them. Maine added an insurance run on a wild pitch in the bottom half of the eighth, and Martin capped off the victory by working a 1-2-3 ninth by inducing three flyouts to end it.
Gianni Gambardella (5-2) started on the mound for Maine and earned the victory allowing five runs on seven hits with five walks and 10 strikeouts in 6.0 innings of work. Martin picked up his first career save. Menzel and Aidan Bardi had three hits each, while Brody Rasmussen and Whitehead added two a piece. Menzel and Whitehead each contributed two RBI. Campbell and Mason Wolf had two hits for NJIT, while Brandon Peterson (4-3) suffered the pitching loss giving up six runs on eight hits in 4.0 innings. The Highlanders fall to 20-21 overall and 8-7 in America East.
The Black Bears improve their record to 18-22 and 12-6 in conference play. Maine is a great position to grab the #1 or #2 seed for the upcoming America East playoffs that they will host at Mahaney Diamond May 20-May 24. Since losing two of three games in the league openers at Binghamton, they’ve taken two of three on the road at NJIT, two of three at home over UMass-Lowell, swept Albany on the road, while winning two of three at home over both UMBC and NJIT. Maine has a single midweek non-conference game on Wednesday at Boston College, before heading to play three games next weekend at defending America East Champion Bryant University.
