America East Baseball News & Notes: Top Two Teams Sweep

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There are five weeks left in the America East Conference season. Last weekend the top three teams all won their series. Bryant University swept Binghamton, UMBC did the same with UAlbany, and UMass Lowell took two of three from Maine. Right now the race is for second place in the league. That will also keep you away from day one of the AE Tournament when it starts in Binghamton on May 22. There is still plenty of baseball left to be played, however, crunch time is near. Here is how last weekend went.

For Bryant (23-11, 11-1) they took care of business at home vs the Bearcats (13-19, 3-9) The three game scores indicated how well the Bulldogs are playing. On Friday, they won 10-3 and then on Saturday won by a 10-2 score. On Sunday, they finished the sweep with a 7-2 victory. The Bulldogs got some clutch performance from Gavin Noreiga this week America East Player of the Week. In game one of the series, Noriega went 3-for-5 with a home run and a triple. He would knock in fine runs. All part of a 6-for-12 week in which he slugged 1.250 and had a .611 on-base percentage. He drove in eight runs for the week. The Bulldogs have been the hottest team in the league having won 18 of their last 20 games including a win over Rhode Island on Tuesday, coming back from down four to tie the game in the seventh on a grand slam home run by Mike Smith. They won the game on a Carmine Petosa solo home run in the eighth. Zach Nichols came on in the ninth to pick up his eighth save of the season. Bryant will now get ready to host the UMass Lowell River Hawks this weekend.

UMBC (15-15, 6-3) swept the Great Danes (5-24, 3-8) with ease last weekend scoring in double figures in all three games. They have now won five in a row. Included in those five wins, are two impressive wins over Maryland out of the Big 10 by a 4-2 score. Then, on Tuesday night, a victory at home over Georgetown by a 10-6 score. What makes these two wins impressive is that Maryland and Georgetown are inside the top 64 of the RPI ranking as of this writing. This weekend they hit the road to face NJIT (12-19, 4-4). A team that is only one game back in the loss column of UMBC in the league standings.

UMass Lowell (15-19, 6-5) took two of three from a Maine (8-23, 4-7) team that had a rough weekend all the way around. It was bad enough that the Black Bears pitching staff got roughed up by the River Hawks hitters. They also lost key starters to injury during the weekend. On Friday it was DH Connor Goodman to a knee injury, on Saturday it was catcher Dean O’Neill to a concussion, then on Sunday LF Nick White went down with a shoulder injury diving for a ball in the outfield. Needless to say, the Black Bears were happy to get out of Lowell. The River Hawks will take a three-game winning streak with them to Bryant University this weekend. These next two weekends for UMass Lowell are big because they will go head-to-head with the top two teams in the league.

The other side to all of this is the bottom of the standings. The Great Danes have a one-game lead over Binghamton for the final spot in the America East playoffs. The two teams will meet this weekend in a key series. For the Bearcats, since they are the host school for this spring postseason event, it would be a shame if they were not playing in it. Binghamton does come into this series losers of four in a row, including Tuesday night’s loss at home to Cornell where the Bearcats bullpen gave up a 7-5 lead in the ninth by allowing a four-spot to the Big Red and lost the game 9-7.

The America East Pitcher of the Week is Tyler Horvat of Bryant University. He threw a complete game vs the Bearcats last weekend. He allowed seven hits and one earned run and he struck out eight hitters. He did not walk anyone and held Binghamton hitters to two extra-base hits. This is his first weekly award.

The America East Rookie of the Week is Danny Wyatt of UMBC. In the sweep of the Great Danes, Wyatt slashed .400/.800/1.338 with four doubles, four runs batted in, and two runs scored. In Saturday’s win, he went 2-for-3 with two doubles and two runs scored. This is his second weekly award.

Next week we’ll look back at this weekend’s play as we will be a month away from the playoffs.