The Maine baseball team had six players record at least two hits on Friday evening in a 11-6 America East Tournament victory over UMBC in Vestal, New York. The Retrievers were eliminated in the defeat, as the Black Bears after a tough loss to Binghamton to begin the day move into the championship round on Saturday against the host Bearcats.
Facing elimination themselves, Maine came out swinging and put up a seven spot on the scoreboard in the top of the first inning. They had six hits in the frame sparked by a Shane Andrus two-run single and a two-run double by Albert De La Rosa. UMBC got within 7-5 in the second, but the Black Bears pulled away by scoring the next four to save their season. Pierce Friedman pitched solidly in relief of Gianni Gambardella, who only lasted 1.1 innings. Friedman (4-1) allowed just one run on five hits with two walks and two strikeouts in 6.2 innings to pick up the win. Andrus had four hits and four RBI, while Troy Carpenter had three hits and two RBI including his 16th homerun of the season. Nic Pepe, Hunter St. Denis, Quinn Murphy, De La Rosa, and Brody Rasmussen added two hits each. De La Rosa and Rasmussen also contributed two RBI a piece. Dylan Melton had three hits and a RBI, and Danny Orr knocked in two as UMBC ended their season with a record of 29-24.
In the Friday afternoon game against top seed Binghamton, the Black Bears had leads of 4-2 and 5-4 but the Bearcats rallied for two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to walk-off a 6-5 win.
Trailing 2-1, Maine hit five straight singles in the seventh with Carpenter, Andrus, and Murphy all picking up RBI for a 4-2 advantage. The hosts tied it with a RBI groundout in the seventh and a sacrifice fly in the eighth. St. Denis would leadoff the ninth, and on a 3-2 count (8th pitch of the at bat) he would get a hanging breaking ball and hammer it over the leftfield fence to push his team back into the lead. Sebastian Holt, who had come on to pitch in the seventh, would stay in to try to close it out in the bottom half for the Black Bears. After a leadoff single by the Bearcats and a sacrifice to move the runner into scoring position with one out, Matt Bolton walked. Holt then struckout Tommy Popoff swinging, but walked Zack Kent to load the bases. He would then hit Caden Albright with the first pitch to force in the tying run, and on a 3-2 count to Zach Anderson he would miss the zone to walk his third batter of the inning to force in the winning run as Binghamton ended it in walk-off fashion. St. Denis had three hits, while Murphy and Rasmussen had two each for Maine. Holt (1-3) suffered the blown save and the pitching loss.
Maine (24-31) and Binghamton (30-20) meet on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. for the America East Championship. The Black Bears will need to beat the Bearcats twice in order to claim their first title since 2023, while Binghamton will look to make it back to back championships.
Photo from UMaine Athletics
