America East Baseball News & Notes: Conference Play

The Bryant Bulldogs swept a series from the Brown Bruins of the Ivy League last weekend. On Saturday, they played a DH. Game one was won handily by the Bulldogs by a 17-8 score. Bryant would produce seven extra-base hits in a 17-hit attack. SS Chris Einemann (3-for-4, 4RS, RBI), 3rd baseman Shea Grady (5-for-6, 3 RS, 2 RBI), and LF Gavin Noriega (2-for-3, 5 RBI, 2 RS) had the big bats. On the mound, Jared Burrows allowed a hit and no runs in 1.1 innings of relief and got the win to improve to 2-3.

Game two was much closer as the Bulldogs pulled out a 3-2 victory. After, the Bruins tied the game at 2-2 in the ninth on a base hit up the middle by DJ Dillehay. Bryant scored in the top of the tenth on a Noriega single to left field that scored PH Aleksa Goldhill with the go-ahead run to make it a 3-2 game. Zach Nichols came out of the bullpen and pitched two innings of two-hit, one-run baseball to get the win. After blowing a save opportunity in the ninth. He is now 2-0.

On Sunday, Bryant used a 4-run first inning to get the 6-3 victory. Tyler Horvat went eight innings of seven-hit, two-run baseball to get the win. Then on Tuesday afternoon, the Bulldogs made it four in a row with a 7-4 win over Sacred Heart. Four of the six Bulldogs’ hits were for extra bases. Liam Levange with two innings of two hits, and one run pitching got the win 2-1. Nichols got the save, his third of the season.

As was mentioned weather has hit the America East league area this week and may linger into the weekend. Three mid-week games have either been canceled or postponed. One team that has been able to escape the bad weather is the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (6-11). They were scheduled for two mid-week games and not only played them but they won them both.

On Tuesday afternoon, they defeated the University of Maryland Eastern Shore by a 10-0 score. They would score in five of the eight innings. The game was called after eight by the 10-run mercy rule. UMBC stole five bases and had four extra-base hits in the game. On Wednesday, they made it two in a row with a 13-7 win over Delaware State. UMBC banged out 10 hits, four more for extra bases, and stole two more bases. Eddie Sargent went 5.1 innings for the win now 1-0. He allowed four hits and zero runs in the outing.

Two teams in the league are struggling at the moment. UAlbany is 0-14, while the defending regular season champs the Maine Black Bears are 2-14 and have lost four in a row, For the Great Danes, their pitching has been a real problem. They have a team ERA of 12.44, 157 hits allowed in 106.1 innings. 161 runs given up, of which 147 are earned. They have surrendered 18 HR and 41 doubles. Teams are hitting .350 vs the staff. They have hit 34 batters and thrown 13 wild pitches.

On offense, they are last in hitting at .228, hit six home runs, and have driven in 46 runs. They are slugging .305 as a team and have struck out 123 times in 439 at-bats. Their OPS is 0,321 dead last in the league. In the field, they have a .964 fielding percentage and 16 errors in 446 chances. They have turned only four double plays, and have only caught six runners trying to steal.

Maine is not much better. The Black Bears have a staff ERA of 10.26, 170 hits allowed in 123.2 innings pitched. 161 runs given up, 141 earned. They have allowed 13 home runs and teams are hitting .331 against them. These numbers jump out at you like 32 hit batters and 25 wild pitches in 16 games. The Black Bears are hitting .239 as a team with 14 HRs and 20 doubles so far. They have struck out 147 times in 509 at-bats while slugging at .362 with an OPS of 0.362. They are fielding it at a .951 clip with 25 errors in 530 chances, 17 double plays turned, and seven runners caught stealing. Both of these teams are better than this. Let’s see what happens as the year goes on.

The America East Player of the Week is Anthony Swenda of UMBC. He slashed .571/.786/.500 in a 3-1 week for the team. had two multi-hit games vs Towson last week. Both of those games resulted in wins for UMBC. This is his first weekly award.

The America East Pitcher of the Week is also from UMBC Jayden Shertel Had an eight-strikeout game vs Yale to get his first win of the year. In the seven innings pitched, he allowed four singles and needed just 80 pitches to get through those 7 innings. This is his second career weekly award.

The AE Rookie of the Week is Jason Kreger of Maine. The freshmen made two appearances lasting a total of seven innings. He gave up zero runs in those outings. Against FAU, he went six, did not allow a run, struck out five, and gave up five walks. This is his first weekly award.

The schedule for this week is as follows. UAlbany at UMass Lowell, Maine at Bryant. Binghamton at UMBC. the non-league series is NJIT at Fairfield.

Next week we look at how this weekend goes for AE.