America East Baseball News & Notes: NJIT Making Some Noise

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It is so difficult to gauge how teams are doing in the early stages of the college baseball season. Some teams have weather issues while others do not. Some teams schedule long road trips to warmer climates to allow themselves the chance to get outside and get back into the routine of playing again. It is what makes college baseball different from most of the other sports at the college level. The playing field for all schools is not level and never will be.

In the America East Conference, that statement does ring true. As the third weekend of play begins there is only one team that has an above .500 record. NJIT is 4-3 coming off a good weekend in which they split a series with a power-5 team in Purdue out of the Big-10. Most of the league is still trying to get their sea legs back. The one mistake we cannot make is to judge these teams and this league by the early season results. Patience is the key here and we must keep that in mind. Let’s look back at week two for America East baseball.

The Highlanders were the highlight of the weekend for the league. They split a four-game series with the Boilermakers. On Friday, they split a doubleheader losing the first game 6-5 despite getting two home runs and five RBI from catcher Luke Longo. Purdue walked it off in the bottom of the ninth on a sac fly from DH Jake Parr. In the nightcap, the Highlanders came back with a 5-1 win. The top two guys in the NJIT order did the damage as Albert Chot (5-for-5, two RBI) and Ray Ortiz (3-for-4, 1 HR, 1 RBI) took care of the offense. On the mound, it was Aidan Kidd (five innings. 3H,1ER, 1BB, 9SO) for the win. Holden DeJong (four innings of no-hit, 6 SO baseball) got the save. On Saturday, Purdue came back to take game three of the series. But on Sunday, NJIT split the series with a 7-5 win. They hit three home runs in the game, Sole bombs from Cole Fleming in the 8th, Andrew Eppinger in the 4th, and Austin Francis a 2R HR in the eighth backed up the pitching of Joe Georgini who went five innings, gave up six hits, 3 earned runs, zero walks, five strikeouts, and one HR. He picked up his second win of the young season. NJIT gets right back at it this weekend with another power-5 match-up in #21 NC State in Raleigh, NC.

Bryant College (1-5) picked up their first win of the season last Friday against Virginia Tech of the ACC. The 7-3 win in Blacksburg, VA. was helped along by a two-run home run from catcher Jackson Phinney in the second inning. They received a strong starting pitching performance from Coleman Picard who went five, gave up three hits, one earned run, one walk, and 12 strikeouts to get the win. He threw 95 pitches in his outing. The Bulldogs would go on to lose both Saturday and Sunday’s games. Bryant heads to Liberty for a weekend series starting on Friday.

After losing two of three to the College of Charleston last weekend, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (2-3) came back on Tuesday with a 13-1 win over Delaware State. At the plate, Ian Diaz (2-for-3, 2RS, 4RBI, GS home run in the 4th), and Matt Ryan (4-of-5, 2RS, 2RBI) got the job done. On the mound, Jayden Shertel picked up the win going 5.2 innings, giving up five hits, one earned run, four walks, and three punch outs. UMBC was helped out by four errors from Delaware State. UMBC has a doubleheader scheduled with St. Peters on Sunday.

The rest of the league is still trying to get untracked in the 2023 baseball season. That includes the two teams that were picked to maybe meet again come May for the tournament title. We’re talking about Binghamton and UMass Lowell who have gone a combined 1-11 so far. UAlbany is also looking for its first win of the year.

The AE Player of the Week and the AE Rookie of the Week come from NJIT. The player is Albert Choi who hit .563 (9-for-16) in the four-game series with Purdue. He slugged .938 with an on-base of .632. Batting in the leadoff spot for the Highlanders, Choi had three triples, stole three bases, walked three times, scored twice, and drove in two more. Choi leads the league in triples with three, hits with 13, and at-bats with 32. Holden De Jong is the rookie. In the second game of Friday’s DH with Purdue, De Jong made his second collegiate appearance going four innings of no-hit, no-run baseball. He recorded 12 outs in his outing with six of them being strikeouts.

The AE Pitcher of the Week is Coleman Picard of Bryant. In the Friday win over the Hokies, Picard went five solid innings striking out 12 in the outing. He would strike out the side in three of the five innings he worked.

Next week we will be back with more from the America East Baseball Conference.