America East Baseball News & Notes: Maine is on a roll

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Last weekend saw only one team sweep a series. The Maine Black Bears took care of UMBC by bashing the baseball all over the park. Meanwhile, NJIT, Albany, and Stony Brook won their series as well. The race to make the postseason is starting to take shape. Here is some other news from America East baseball.

Maine (7-2), the leaders in division A, did not have a scheduled midweek game. They will take a three-game winning streak into this weekend’s series against NJIT at Mahoney Diamond in Maine. Last weekend saw the Black Bears take advantage of UMBC’s (4-5) pitching staff to the tune of 45 runs. Through the first three weekends of America East league play, the Black Bears have been swinging some really hot bats. They lead the league with 96 runs so far. Not surprisingly, they have the best team batting average in the league at .290 in 22 games. They also lead in slugging at .458 and are second in home runs with 27. The Player of the Week, Joe Bramanti, has capitalized on every mistake pitchers have thrown at him. He leads in RBI with 37, is second in slugging at .660, and home runs with nine, Like most northeast teams, the pitching has been a work in progress. The staff ERA is next to last at 7.28, 151 earned runs allowed in 186.2 innings.

NJIT (7-2), who will be heading to Maine, leads division B in a battle of division leaders. They took two of three at home last weekend vs UMass Lowell. On Friday night, they took advantage of a serious wind blowing out to left field and hit three home runs to win 10-4. Julio Marcano and Paul Franzioni hit solo home runs in the third. In the fourth, Albert Choi hit a grand slam home run to bust the game wide open. LJ Keevan was the unlucky pitcher for the River Hawks that had to try and deal with the wind. He gave up all three home runs and nine runs. The Highlanders took game two of a doubleheader on Saturday with the help of some shakey River Hawks infield defense. Two errors by second baseman Roddy Hernandez and starting pitcher Ryan Towle led to two unearned runs in the fifth that proved to be the difference in a 7-5 NJIT victory. This series might be a preview of what could be when the conference tournament takes place in May. This will be the only regular-season meeting between the two.

After losing game one to Hartford on Friday night. Stony Brook (7-2) came back and took the next two to win that series. The Hawks took game one behind a five-run fifth inning that saw Hartford go deep twice in the inning, and four times for the game. Brett Anderson and Ryan Knight each hit two-run bombs. For Knight, it was his second of the game part of a four-RBI night for the league’s rookie of the week. James Judenis earned his first win of the year while Ben Fero took the loss giving up five runs on six hits in 2.2 innings pitched. However, the Seawolves came back and swept a doubleheader on Saturday, winning game one 9-5. Once again, bad defense contributed to the result as Hartford made four errors, two in the ninth to go along with a wild pitch that led to five runs, three of them unearned. Game two was a seven-inning affair and Stony Brook scored in four of those frames to get the sweep with a 7-5 win.

The River Hawks (3-6) have been stealing bases in bunches lately. On Tuesday, in their midweek win over Dartmouth, the River Hawks stole seven bases in a 14-2 win. They lead the conference and are tied for 16th in the country with 56 steals in 25 games. Lowell has been caught only nine times. Robert Gallagher is third in the league and tied for sixth in the country with 21 steals in 21 attempts. He had two steals in Tuesday’s win. Jacob Humphrey is fourth in the league and tied for 26th in the country with 15 steals in 15 attempts. He had one steal on Tuesday.

America East has two other base-stealers that are near the top of the stolen base category. Albany’s Jason Bottari leads the league and is tied for fourth in the nation with 23 stolen bases in 24 games. Myles Nicholson of UMBC is tied for sixth in the nation with 21 steals in 27 games. He is second in the league. Neither player had a midweek game this week.

The Player of the Week is Joe Bramanti of Maine. The graduate senior first baseman had quite a weekend vs UMBC. He hit .556, driving in 12 runs in the three games. He had eight in game one of the series. He slugged 1.222 and homered in every game in the series, while also hitting three doubles. This is his first career weekly award.

The Pitcher of the Week is UMass Lowell RHP Joshua Becker. In Saturday’s game one win over NJIT, Becker took a no-hitter into the fifth inning. He would settle for a complete game allowing one run on four hits while striking out nine and walking one. He threw 104 pitches in his outing. For Becker, this is his first weekly award of the season and the second of his career.

The Rookie of the Week is Ryan Knight of Hartford. In four games last week, Knight had an OPS of 1.400. In the team’s Friday victory over Stony Brook, Knight had a two-home run four-RBI game. He drove in five runs for the week. This is Knight’s first weekly award.

That’s all for this week. We will be back next week with more from America East baseball.