America East Baseball News & Notes: League is Chasing Maine

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We begin the month of April with a holiday week of baseball in the America East Conference. The Maine Black Bears are the team that everyone is after. For the second weekend in a row, the Black Bears swept a weekend league series this time from the struggling UMass Lowell River Hawks. They entered the week on a five-game winning streak. On their heels are the Binghamton Bearcats who are a game back heading into non-league baseball with Hartford.

NJIT (8-16, 3-3) broke into the win column in league play with a home series sweep of the UAlbany Great Danes (3-17-1, 0-6). Two of the three wins by the Highlanders were by one run. On Friday, the two teams played two with NJIT getting both wins. Game one was a pitching duel between the Great Danes Gregg Scherrer (0-2) and the Highlanders Ryan Fischer (1-3). Albany had a 2-1 lead to the bottom of the sixth of a seven-inning first game. NJIT’s bat woke up and scored single runs in the sixth and seventh innings to win the game 3-2. In the sixth, a sac fly by Austin Francis scored Ray Ortiz with the tying run. In the seventh, Jared Donnelly’s double to the right-center field gap scored PR Andrew Eicock with the winning run. Fischer went seven innings of seven-hit, two earned run pitching with five strikeouts. In game two, a three-run first inning was all that NJIT would need for the sweep. RBI hits from Ray Ortiz, Kevin Putsky, and Cole Flemming did the trick. Adien Kidd (4-1) picked up the win with five innings of two-hit, one-run pitching. He struck out ten and walked three. His performance earned him AE Pitcher of the Week honors. Grant Vurpillar went four innings to pick up his second save of the season. On Sunday, the Highlanders walked off again. With the game tied at 6-6, Donelly hit a game-winning HR to right-center off Dylan Banner to make a winner of Holden De Jong (1-3) who went 1.2 innings retiring all five batters he faced. Speaking of Kidd, he leads the league in opposing BA at .193, batters struck out with 43, SO looking with 13, wins with four, and hits with 21.

Maine is off to another strong start. At 12-11, 6-0 in the league, the Black Bears are looking for back-to-back seasons as regular-season champs. Last weekend they hosted the UMass Lowell River Hawks. The three-game sweep of Lowell was fueled by big innings in the first two games. A six-run second inning led to the game one win, 9-3. Game two saw the Black Bears erasing a 1-0 deficit with an eight-run fourth inning. This time the River Hawks came all the way back and tied the game in the seventh on a wild pitch at 8-8. However, Maine retook the lead in the bottom of the seventh on a Jeremiah Jenkins single to left off of Brendan Williams (0-1) that scored Jake Rainess with the lead run. Justin Baeyens, the fifth Black Bears pitcher, got the win by going two innings striking out six of the seven hitters he faced. He is now 1-1.

On Saturday, the Black Bears completed the sweep by winning 6-3. A three-run sixth was the difference. A Myles Sargent RBI double was followed by a two-run HR from Dylan McNary It made a winner of Noah Lewis (3-1) who went seven innings. Andrew Chevarie recorded his first save by pitching a scoreless ninth. McNary was a problem all weekend for the River Hawks pitching staff. He slashed .400/1.200/1.665 in the three games, with two home runs, and six RBI. He scored four runs and stole a base. His weekend earned him AE Player of the Week. McNary is fifth in the league in HR with six, sixth in steals with seven, eighth in RBI with 20, and in runs scored with 20.

The Bryant Bulldogs (13-11, 4-2) are doing just fine in their first year in the league. They did lose two of three last weekend from Binghamton on the road. Barrum Lewis is sixth in on-base percentage at .446, seventh in on-base & slugging at 1.042, On the mound, the Bulldogs are getting some good work from Ken Turner who is 10th with two wins, third in runs allowed with 14, fourth in hits allowed with 27, third in earned runs with 14, and eighth in opposing BA at .267. This weekend, Bryant heads to UMass Lowell for a holiday weekend series.

UMBC (11-13, 3-3) is coming off a weekend sweep at the hands of #19 UConn Huskies. They have now lost four in a row. One problem for the Retrievers is they are the worst fielding team in the league with a .958%. They have committed 34 errors which are the most in the league. Leewood Molessa leads in slugging percentage at .720, third in on-base & slugging at 1.114, first in RBI with 38, tied for the lead in doubles with nine, and in HR with nine. Molessa is 36th in the nation in RBI.

This week’s AE Rookie of the Week is Ty Sallie of NJIT. From the leadoff spot vs UAlbany, Sallie hit .357 with two doubles, three RBI, and stole three bases. He slugged at a .500 clip while reaching base at a .471 pace. Doing what leadoff hitters are supposed to do, he set the table for the hitters behind him.

Next week we’ll look back on Easter Weekend baseball in AE.