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Two seasons ago, the University of Maine baseball team had their first home series on April 13. All four games were moved to a different site, however, because Mahaney Diamond was unsuitable to play on. Last season, the Black Bears had five of their first seven games moved to Husson University’s Winkin Complex because of Mahaney’s drainage problems.
This season there was no need to relocate.
While snow surrounded the field and temperatures hovered around 40 degrees, the Black Bears broke in the new-look FieldTurf surface at Mahaney Diamond, salvaging a split in the four-game series with Sacred Heart University in a rare weekend home series in March.
“That’s more like the brand of baseball we’ve been playing,” said UMaine coach Steve Trimper after Sunday’s double-header. “Going out there and playing clean baseball. We persevered with the weather, going out there and we came back and won two games – two very hard-fought baseball games.”
UMaine, now 12-9 in the season, was swept in Saturday’s double-header, losing 4-1 and 7-4. They rebounded to win both games on Sunday, 11-2 and 5-3. The Pioneers, from the Northeast Conference, are 7-9 overall.
In Sunday’s first game, the Black Bears took advantage of six Sacred Heart errors and pounded out 12 hits in an 11-2 victory.
In the bottom of the first, UMaine manufactured a run to take an early 1-0 lead. Senior Billy Cather reached on an error, moved over to second on a sacrifice bunt, stole third base and scored on junior Myckie Lugbauer’s infield single.
The Black Bears extended their lead in the second inning to 4-0. Junior Tony Patane knocked in a run with an RBI double to make it 2-0 and freshman Taylor Lewis scored Patane with an RBI triple down the right field line. Cather followed, plating Lewis with an RBI single.
“Taylor is a tremendous athlete,” Trimper said. “We need to get him going in this lineup eventually. He runs a 6.3 60. He’s a specimen. To Taylor’s credit, he’s done a lot of work on his swing and getting the ball on the ground more.”
Sacred Heart scored a pair of runs in the fourth, but that’s all starter Matt Jebb and reliever Jonathan Balentina surrendered on the afternoon. Jebb (3-0) struggled with control, walking two and hitting two batters, but worked his way out of several jams. He lasted six innings, giving up only two runs on six hits and struck out a pair. Balentina worked the final three innings, shutting out the Pioneers and picking up the save.
Lewis led the offense, tying a school-record for triples in a game with two. He added a bases-clearing triple in the eighth inning. Senior Kevin McAvoy pounded out three hits and scored three runs.
In the second game, UMaine scored five runs in the second inning, and freshman AJ Bazdanes gave up only two earned runs in five-plus innings to down the Pioneers 5-3.
Sacred Heart committed two errors in the inning, and the Black Bears took advantage. Cather’s two-run single provided the big blow.
The Pioneers scored one run in the second, third and sixth innings, but that’s all they could muster up against the righty Bazdanes. Bazdanes (1-0) battled windy conditions to pick up his first collegiate victory.
Bazdanes and Jebb “didn’t have command of their fastball, but were throwing their off-speed stuff for strikes,” said Trimper of his young pitchers. “I always say, ‘a sign of a good pitcher is a guy that can win or can keep you in baseball games when they don’t have their right stuff, and those guys have been doing that.”
Balsinde pitched 1 2/3 shutout innings to pick up his second save of the season.
Cather led the offensive attack with two hits and two RBIs. Six other Black Bears had one hit apiece.
In Saturday’s first game, Sacred Heart jumped on UMaine starter Kevin Scanlan early, scoring two runs in the top of the first inning. Jeff Heppner provided the runs with a two-run double, knocking in Ryan Lynch and Tyler Santos.
UMaine got on the board in the bottom of the second inning when McAvoy doubled and junior third baseman Jarrett Lukas followed with a double of his own to score McAvoy.
That’s as close as the Black Bears got as the Pioneers scored two more runs in the fourth inning to lengthen their lead to 4-1. Hunter Phillips hit an RBI double and Steve Tedesco picked up an RBI on a sacrifice fly.
Leading the UMaine attack was redshirt freshman first baseman Justin Leisenheimer who reached base three times with two hits and a walk.
Scanlan (1-2) pitched eight innings, allowing four runs on eight hits. He also struck out five.
Left-hander Matt Fitton pitched a complete game for Sacred Heart and was aided by a stellar outfield defense which tracked down several potential extra-base hits. Fitton surrendered only one run on four hits and struck out a pair.
“What I said to [the team] is if we can continue to have at-bats like that, we’re going to win a lot of ballgames,” Trimper said. “I thought the first game we just didn’t get it to fall our way, which sometimes happens.”
In game two, the Pioneers played errorless baseball and took advantage of mistakes by UMaine to sweep the double-header.
The Black Bears jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on RBI singles by redshirt freshman Ian Leisenheimer and Lugbauer.
Sacred Heart responded in the next half inning with three runs to make it 3-2 and added a run in the fourth to extend the lead to 4-2.
Lukas cut the lead to 4-3 in the fifth inning when he knocked in Ian Leisenheimer with a double.
The Pioneers scored three in the top of the sixth though, two coming on an error.
“In the second game, we played poorly,” Trimper said. “We came out, we made mistakes and they didn’t. Today, we lost the game. We let ourselves get beat at least in that second game, and that’s what happens when you make mistakes.”
Freshman right-hander Keith Bilodeau (1-3) picked up the loss for the Black Bears. He threw 5 1/3 innings, allowing six earned runs on seven hits. Jared Balbach improved to 3-1 on the season for the Pioneers, throwing five innings, allowing just three runs. Chris Zaccherio pitched a scoreless seventh inning to earn the save.
“I think we let our frustration level settle in, and we can’t let that happen,” Trimper added. “That’s what I said after the first game. You can’t get frustrated with these things, and if you don’t get the big hit, you have to move on.”
Bangor Daily News