The Maine Black Bears rallied from a 4-1 seventh inning deficit on Friday to tie the game 4-4, before the Binghamton Bearcats pulled away for a 9-4 series opening victory in America East baseball action at Mahaney Diamond in Orono. The three game weekend set is the final three conference games for Maine in the regular season, as they fight for postseason seeding.
The Black Bears never led, as the visiting Bearcats eventually built a 4-1 advantage. Maine (19-26, 12-10 America East) came alive in the last of the seventh to even the score. Chris Bear led off with a solo homerun to leftfield, while Evan Menzel and Brody Rasmussen followed with back to back walks. With one out, Aidan Bardi chopped one into the hole at second base and beat the throw at first to allow a run to score. With two outs, Myles Sargent and Damon Gaither both walked as well for force in another run to make it 4-4. It didn’t take Binghamton long to jump back into the lead for good in the top of the eighth inning, as Logan Haskell and Mike Stellrecht provided RBI singles. They scored three in the ninth to make up the final difference on a solo homer by Matt Bolton and a two-run single by Freddy Forgione.
Rasmussen, Gaither, and Bear each had two hits in the Maine loss. Gaither had two RBI. Colin Fitzgerald got a no-decision pitching the first 6.2 innings allowing four runs on eight hits with one walk and five strikeouts. Pierce Friedman (1-1) suffered the defeat in relief. Haskell, Forgione, and Zach Rogacki had three hits each for Binghamton as part of a 17-hit attack. Forgione drove in three runs. Connor Griffin (1-1) picked up the pitching win in relief, as the Bearcats improve to 22-21 and 10-9 in America East. Game two of the series weather permitting is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday.
