Bryant University scored five times in the seventh inning on Sunday afternoon, and swept a three game America East baseball series over Maine with a 9-2 victory at Conaty Park in Smithfield, Rhode Island.
The Black Bears trailed 1-0 early, before tying it on a sacrifice fly by Quinn Murphy in the top of the second inning. They took their only lead of the afternoon in the third when Dean O’Neill was caught stealing, but Brody Rasmussen scored on the throw from third base. Brandyn Durand continued his big series with his fifth RBI of the weekend for Bryant with a run scoring single in the bottom half of the third. Drew Wyers gave the hosts the lead for good with an RBI single in the fourth, and extended it to 4-2 with another RBI single in the sixth. The Bulldogs blew it open in the seventh inning to help complete the sweep. Jason Libby (Bangor Christian) came on in relief of starter Gianni Gambardella, and after recording the first out he walked Matt D’Amato and hit Jacob Gaudreau with a pitch. Charlie Saul followed with a no doubt three-run homerun to left centerfield. Jack Donlin then was called on to pitch and was greeted by a double from Zac Zyons and a two-run homer Gavin Noriega to right to make it 9-2 and finish the scoring.
Rasmussen, Aidan Bardi, and Chris Bear had two hits each for Maine. Gambardella (5-3) took the loss on the hill allowing four runs on 12 hits with no walks and four strikeouts in 6.0 innings. Wyers and Noriega had three hits and two RBI each for Bryant. Saul added two hits and three runs driven in with his key homerun in the seventh. Jackson Vanesko (4-3) picked up the win out of the bullpen with 4.0 scoreless innings giving up two hits with three walks and a strikeout. The first place Bulldogs have now won eight straight games improving to 26-16-1 and 13-5 in America East.
Maine drops to 19-25 and 12-9 in conference play. The top two teams in the league get a bye in round one of the America East Tournament that begins on May 20th and will be held at Mahaney Diamond in Orono. The Black Bears are currently in second with a .571 win percentage, just a few points ahead of NJIT who is in third (.555 win percentage). Maine finishes up their conference regular season at home next weekend when they take on Binghamton for a three game series, before playing a three game non-conference set at UConn.
