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Although they may never use it as an excuse, the University of Maine baseball team is homesick.
In fact, the Black Bears’ only “home” game — when they played Rollins College in Florida — they won 5-4.
Even though they face it every year, this road trip of 25 straight games to start the season is a brutal test of mental fortitude, especially for the young guys.
“This is all on the mental side of the game,” Head Coach Steve Trimper said. “It’s one of the things we’re working on. I hate blaming youth, however, I see some of our younger players have a hard time coming back. They need to learn to overcome adversity. It’s a nine-inning baseball game, just because something happens in the second inning doesn’t mean it’s over.”
It has shown, as the Black Bears have erupted for 49 runs in their six victories, while only 57 in their 15 losses.
After a difficult start to their last series, when UMaine dropped three out of four games to Rider University, the Black Bears look to right the ship in their last weekend away, before coming home, playing four games split between Fairleigh Dickinson University and St. Peter’s College in New Jersey.
“We’re trying to find that batting order that works best for us,” junior center fielder Taylor Lewis said. “We’ve been mixing that up a lot. Also, we need to make the simple plays. Coach talks about it after every game. We did one aspect of playing ball right and in another aspect we didn’t do so well.”
“We really had a good heart-to-heart talk with the team [after the Rider victory],” Trimper said. “It’s a classic case of trying too hard. You’re trying so hard that you’re actually failing. The guys put so much pressure on themselves when there are non-pressure situations. We had a good talk and it just loosened us up.”
The Black Bears look to build off of the victory over the Broncos, which Trimper said was one of their best played games of the season.
“We need to wrap our heads around playing a little looser, and when we did that we played one of the best games of the year,” Trimper said. “We had timely hitting, we had great pitching from [sophomore] Stephen Perakslis and some guys played some great defense.”
The Black Bears have a good shot against the Peacocks, who have lost 12 straight games and the Knights, who are 4-10.
The Black Bears game against Sacred Heart, scheduled for today, was canceled.
“We want to play quality baseball and get on a roll here and come out with four wins,” Trimper said.
Continuing to excel at the plate, Lewis leads the team in batting average, runs scored, hits, stolen bases and slugging percentage, all while carrying a newly acquired leadership role as one of the captains.
“I have the same approach as last year,” Lewis said. “You don’t want to switch up too many things if they’re working. I try to do whatever I can to help the team out, whether it be bunting or driving runners in. Not too worried about the numbers, just trying to get some more Ws.”
