The Maine baseball team racked up 23 hits on Sunday afternoon, and throttled UMBC 23-1 by mercy rule in seven innings at Mahaney Diamond in Orono. The series clinching win is the 11th victory in the last 14 games for the Black Bears and their fourth straight conference series win.
Gianni Gambardella shut down the Retrievers on the mound, allowing just one run on one hit in 5.0 innings. The offense meanwhile for the Black Bears was on fire. The top four batters in the lineup Chris Bear, Brody Rasmussen, Dean O’Neill, and Drew Reynolds combined for 14 hits, 13 RBI, and 14 runs scored. Reynolds led the way with five hits, six RBI, and scored four times. Myles Sargent had himself quite a series, as he finished with three hits and four RBI. The senior second baseman in the three games went 9-13 with 13 RBI. After falling behind in game one to UMBC 16-8 in a 16-12 loss on Friday, Maine outscored them 36-2 over the final 16.1 innings on the weekend. Gambardella (4-2) walked three and struckout four on the mound, with Sergio Droz picking up the only hit on the day for the Retrievers with a solo homerun in the second inning. Freshman Tommy Martin spun the final 2.0 innings. UMBC drops to 15-18 and 7-8 in America East.
Maine improves to 16-21 and 10-5 in conference play. The Black Bears are currently first in the America East, but have played four more games than second place NJIT and three more than third place Bryant. They’ll host the NJIT Highlanders next weekend for a three game series at Mahaney Diamond.
