The University of Maine softball team lost their opening round game in the double elimination America East Tournament to UAlbany on Wednesday at the Diamond at UMBC in Baltimore, but fought back to win three straight elimination games to send the #5, #4, and #2 seeds home for the season. The #6 Black Bears were one win away from advancing to the championship round with a rematch against the Great Danes on Friday afternoon in the last elimination game of the tournament.
Maine would come up short however, as UAlbany advanced to Championship Saturday against UMBC with a 5-3 win. The Black Bears took the lead early for the only time in the game in the top of the first inning when Kelby Drews scored on a wild pitch. The Great Danes came right back with two runs in the bottom half to jump on top and wouldn’t trail again. Maddi Petrella and Chloe Lewis knocked in the runs in to make it 2-1. A fielding error allowed Maine to tie it 2-2 in the second, but an RBI single by Petrella and an error on the same play to score another run in the third made it 4-2 Albany and they never relinquished the lead. Jasmine Gray had a solo homerun in the fifth inning for the final run of the season for the Black Bears. Gray and Izzy Nieblas had two hits each for Maine. Alysen Reith (7-8) took the loss in the circle. After the opening round loss to Albany, they defeated #5 Bryant 11-1, #4 UMass-Lowell 1-0, and then #2 Binghamton earlier on Friday afternoon 6-4. They did this in the postseason after not winning three games in a row at anytime during the regular season. Petrella had three hits and Kate Powers (10-6) got the pitching win for the #3 Great Danes who improve to 24-19, and will need to defeat top seed and host UMBC twice on Saturday in order to win the title.
Maine had their season end with a final record of 16-39. Other than the COVID season of 2020, the Black Bears in full seasons played since 2019 have put up an overall record of 47-127 and 22-55 in conference games including postseason.
Recap and cover photo by Chris Lessner
Photo- Senior outfielder Mariah Pearson gets ready to run during a game earlier this season at the UMaine Softball Facility in Orono
