America East Baseball News & Notes: Tough Sledding Early

Everyone is in action this week as part of a 30-game total schedule for the league. The weather has already had an impact on the week’s schedule as the Great Danes game with Central Connecticut State has been postponed. The game was part of Tuesday’s lineup. Here is a look at what took place last weekend.

The Maine Black Bears (1-8) went down to Winthrop and had their hands full. They lost the weekend series allowing 33 runs in the three games. Early season pitching has been a problem for the Black Bears. Sunday starter Noah Lewis gave up 10 earned runs in 3.1 innings pitched. He also allowed 10 hits and threw 73 pitches. It did not help that six of those hits went for extra bases. Winthrop would win the game 15-4. On Saturday, Maine lost a pair of games. Game two of the day saw starter Jason Kreguer give up eight hits and four earned runs in five innings in a 10-3 loss.  In the first game, a six-run eighth inning broke open a close game. It did not help matters that the bats were silent against the Winthrop starter Riley Huge who went 7.1 innings, allowing one hit, and struck out 20 Black Bears hitters in an 8-0 shutout. Maine will try to get things going in the right direction this weekend vs Bethune-Cookman.

UMass Lowell (3-7) was another team on the short end of things. A weekend series vs Kansas State did not go well. The River Hawks would score first in two of the three games. In the end, that really didn’t matter. KState bats pounded River Hawks pitching to the tune of 37 runs and 39 hits as the River Hawks spent spring break week in the state of Kansas. They will have five more games in the state before they come home to begin the home portion of the schedule next Wednesday.

UMBC (1-7) not only won their first game of the season on Sunday vs Monmouth but also saw their ace round into mid-season form. Luke Johnson went 7.1 innings on Friday in a 2-0 loss to Rider University. He would take the loss despite giving up six hits and two earned runs allowed. He struck out nine and issued one walk while throwing 93 pitches. Rider nicked Johnson with a two-run eight inning. On Tuesday, Navy used a 4-run seventh to defeat UMBC 4-3. The good news was the start they got from Logan Wiley who went five shutout innings, giving up zero hits and runs. He did walk five but could be in line to be the Saturday starter once league play begins.

Before Binghamton (3-7) got their Sunday win, they went toe-to-toe with the number-one-ranked team in the country, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. The two teams played twice on Saturday with Wake Forest winning both games. However, the games were closer than you might think. In game one, Wake jumped out to a 5-0 lead by getting those runs in the first off of Gabe Driscoll (2.1 IP, seven hits, six earned runs). The Bearcats came back on the strength of RF Mike Gunning’s bat (2-for-4, 2RS, 2HR, 4RBI). He hit a two-run HR to right-center in the fourth. Then in the 5th, he hit another two-run HR to straightaway center field. It brought Binghamton to within a run at 6-5. However, the #1 ranked team gave themselves some insurance by hitting a home run of their own in the sixth off the bat of 2nd baseman Austin Hawke to make it a 7-5 game and the final score. The second game saw Binghamton lose by a 9-8 score as the Bearcats hung tough with the number one-ranked Wake Forest. On Tuesday afternoon, the Bearcats lost to East Tennessee State by a 7-5 score. John Lumpinski took the loss out of the pen by giving up a run on two hits in the sixth inning.

The AE Player of the Week is Luke Longo of NJIT. He slashed .375/.500/1.188 with eight RBI, six hits, and four home runs, with seven runs scored. He hit a three-run HR to help the Highlanders get their only win of the week on Sunday vs VMI. On Saturday, he went 2-for-3 with two HR and three RBI.

The America East Pitcher of the Week is Sam Downs of UMBC. In the win over Monmouth, Downs went 6.2 IP with only four hits allowed, one walk, and four strikeouts. He allowed an unearned run in the first, then put up zeroes the rest of the way. He threw 61 pitches in his outing.

The America East Rookie of the Week is Cade Ladehoff of NJIT. He slashed .421/.421/.895 with eight hits, nine runs driven in and four runs scored. He had at least a hit in all five Highlanders games last week including a 2-for-5 game on Sunday with two- HR and five RBI.

Next week we’ll be back with more from the America East Baseball Conference. Hopefully, there will be better news to share with you.