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Each year the University of Maine baseball team takes its annual trip to Florida during spring break. They leave the snowy confines of Mahaney Diamond in Orono for sunshine and two weeks of nonstop baseball.
This year the team left the Sunshine State with a winning record of 10-7. The last time the Black Bears came back from their spring trip with a winning record? 2006, the same year they won the America East Tournament and played in the Chapel Hill Regional of the NCAA Tournament.
While coach Steve Trimper’s squad turned in their short sleeves down south for their Under Armour Cold Gear and portable heaters inside the dugout, the spring trip is essential to the success of a team especially in the colder, Northeast region.
“It’s just like a big league spring training. We go down there, take it with a grain of salt. If we lose, or don’t do very well, we don’t focus on it too much and we take what we can from it and move on,” senior outfielder Kevin McAvoy said.
The weekend before the spring trip this season, the Black Bears played a four-game series out west against the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Before then, they were relegated to practicing inside Mahaney Dome.
With 11 games in 11 days, UMaine uses the trip as a competitive preseason to prepare for the upcoming conference schedule, the gateway to the ultimate goal of reaching the NCAA Tournament.
“We like to get things accomplished,” senior outfielder Billy Cather said. “We want to get a lot of at bats and for me seeing a lot of fly balls is really key, because we’ve been indoors all year.”
Despite the trip serving as a tune-up for the America East slate, the team treats it the same way as a conference game.
“We go out there to win every game,” junior Myckie Lugbauer said. “Every game is important for us and we go out there every day trying to get better.”
The advantage of playing so many games during the spring trip is developing younger players and allowing all players to play in different situations and as much as possible. Thirteen Black Bears logged at least six starts before this past weekend’s home opener, and 13 different pitchers saw time on the hill.
“It gives me the ability to play a lot of guys, rest some guys at some positions, and it allows me to go to six-man starting rotation, which we never use during the year,” Trimper said of the spring trip. “I think that part of it develops your players and allows them to win some jobs.”
Another aspect key to the development of the squad is playing top-notch competition. While schedules in previous seasons have included the likes of national powers Arizona State University and the University of Miami, this season’s schedule only included Ohio State University from the Big Ten Conference. The Black Bears defeated the Buckeyes, who were ranked No. 25 in the nation at the time, 10-7.
“[The trip] definitely helps a lot,” Lugbauer said. “The competition that we’re playing down in Florida is probably a little bit better than what we’re going to be playing in conference.”
In Florida, the team usually stays at a hotel, but this season they opted to stay in condominiums. At the condos, meals were prepared by Trimper’s wife, Lisa, instead of in previous years where fast food dominated the diets of the players.
With games nearly every day, the only drawback besides the normal bumps and bruises is fatigue.
“I think the college baseball player isn’t built to play professional baseball,” Trimper said. “And basically it’s a professional baseball. As much as practices can do, it’s not the same as playing every single day, so yes, fatigue does happen.”
With the spring trip behind them and the first home series now in the books, the Black Bears, now 12-9 overall after splitting a four-game set with Sacred Heart University, are focused on the conference season. After two nonconference series at Wagner College and at home against Iona College the next two weekends, UMaine begins America East play on April 11 at Hartford University.
For now, the squad will welcome back three key players returning from injuries suffered during the spring trip. Right-hander Joe Miller, the projected ace of the staff, and position players Joey Martin and Kyle Stilphen are all expected to play this weekend.
