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Today, the University of Maine baseball team will get to experience something they haven’t felt in more than a year – a home game.
After 27 straight road games to open the season, UMaine hosts conference power Stony Brook for a four game slate starting today. For the red-hot Black Bears, the visit to lonely Mahaney Diamond is long over due, even if it’s against one of their major competitors in America East.
“We’ve been on the road for 27 games and it gets tiresome,” said Trimper. “It’s outstanding to get back on our home field with our home crowd and in our own beds and locker room. I really think that we’re getting pumped up because of this.”
“I am very excited,” said pitcher Mike Powers. “I’ve never played at home. It’s been tough to be away for 26 games or so. I am excited to see the crowd here.”
Powers, like several of the Black Bears, is happy just not having to travel.
“Not having a 14-hour bus ride is going to make it a lot better,” said Powers. “We will be a lot fresher.”
The Black Bears, 17-9-1 and 3-0 in conference, will need that energy when they take on the preseason pick for second place in the league, Stony Brook. The Seawolves, however, are currently underachieving with a record of 9-17 and 1-2 in league competition.
“This is a very key weekend for us,” said Trimper. “I think Stony Brook is probably one of the better teams in the conference. This is going to be a little preview of what is going to probably happen in the postseason.”
Led by a potent front end of the rotation, Stony Brook will look to stymie a Black Bear lineup that has gone .333 from the plate. The mark is the 10th best in the country.
“College baseball is built around hitting mistakes,” said Trimper. “I think what we are doing is that there hasn’t been too many times we’ve had a hitters count and we let a fastball go. We’ve been swinging and that just goes to show if you got good short compact swings and swing at strikes you’re going to get hits.”
The success has not caught Trimper off guard.
“I knew we had some pretty good hitters in the fall, I think we didn’t tinker too much,” said Trimper. “We basically changed more with the mental approach than the physical approach.”
“I think this one of our most potent offenses,” said catcher Matt McGraw. “It’s more complete from top to bottom.”
UMaine is also eighth in the country in runs per game at 8.9 and 15th in slugging percentage at .496. Both marks rose over the weekend thanks to an explosive sweep of University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
“We did a lot of things right this [past] weekend,” said Trimper. “We played clean defense, we obviously hit and the pitching was pretty good.”
Trimper is confident that the weekend created some momentum for the Black Bears.
“It did build some momentum for the weekend,” said Trimper. “Anytime you win a series it’s great. Anytime you win a road series its even better. And anytime you sweep, it’s outstanding.”
McGraw, however, said this momentum could backfire.
“It could carry us through the weekend or kill us,” said McGraw. “It’s like two sides of a coin. If we keep playing with the same intensity I think we are going to be good. If we let it get to our heads we could be in trouble.”
Trimper said Stony Brook has several components that could give UMaine trouble.
“They have outstanding pitching, they run the bases well and they are going to be a team that is going to capitalize on our mistakes if we do make them,” said Trimper. “We’ve got to play clean.”
“They have two or three starters that can go toe-to-toe with our guys,” said McGraw.
Trimper believes the Stony Brook pitchers could play an important role.
“They don’t walk a lot of guys,” said Trimper. “They got a couple ERAs that are down which means they play pretty good defense. We are really going to have to hit good pitching this weekend.”
In the past few weekends UMaine has proven they are capable of not only hitting good pitching but knocking it out of the park. Slugging his way to the top of the offensive charts is Kevin McAvoy, 10th in the nation in batting average and 18th in slugging percentage. Earlier this week, McAvoy and Joe Hough earned America East Player of the Week honors. McAvoy received his fourth America East Rookie of the Year honor, while Hough collected Player of the Week honors.
“It’s definitely a great honor to be acknowledged for something like that,” said McAvoy. “I just go out there and do what I can do. I try not to do too much.”
“He’s done a great job,” said Trimper. “What he has done is obviously not play like a freshman, he’s stayed pretty even keel. He doesn’t say much. He is going to go out there and do what he is told. He is a strong kid. He gets a lot of hits because of his strength. He’s a guy who has bought into the system. He takes a good aggressive hack when he is up in the count or when he’s down two strikes he shortens up and tries to use the whole field.”
McAvoy has a .440 average with 22 runs scored and a team-leading 36 RBIs. Hough on the other hand is hitting .324 with 29 runs scored and 16 RBIs. Others likely to play huge roles in the weekend offensively are Joel Barrett, .383 and 29 RBIs; and Ryan Quintal who is batting .350 with 31 RBIs.
“We have to stay with the relax approach offensively,” said McGraw. “We can’t worry if it doesn’t come right way. We can’t start changing approaches. We have to stay with it.”
Getting the start today will be Nolan Boike, 3-0, who has a 3.58 ERA. Also likely to get the ball sometime over the weekend will be Jason Weymouth, Scott Robinson, Powers and Josh Zyskowski. Robinson is one save shy of the all-time save record at UMaine held by Mike LeBlanc.
Today’s game and Friday’s doubleheader starts at 4 p.m., while Saturday’s decision kicks off at 1 p.m.
“Stony Brook has always been a good team to play against and now we are getting them at home for the first weekend,” said McGraw. “This is a good time where you can start getting ahead in the conference race and start putting some teams back in the distance. This is actually my favorite part of the season because at the end you have all the pressure building up and at the start you can’t see how things are developing.”
Bangor Daily News