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Don’t look now, but as the second half of the America East conference season begins, one team is starting to make its move. The Maine Black Bears, who have struggled through the first half of the spring, are starting to play better baseball. Last weekend, the Black Bears began the second half by sweeping the UAlbany Great Danes. A good weekend can also be said of UMBC, which went on the road and took two of three from UMass Lowell. While it is still a tightly bunched race, teams are starting to finally get their feet underneath them and play better.
As we look ahead to this coming weekend, two teams look like they have turned a corner. The Black Bears (14-20, 8-4) have won five in a row. Their best stretch of baseball so far this spring. The defending champs, the Bryant Bulldogs (16-15-1, 5-4), have also won five in a row. The flip side to the good baseball being played is the Great Danes (10-21, 3-9 ), who have lost four in a row. If the playoffs were to begin today, they would not make the trip to Maine for the America East conference tournament. At the moment, they are two games back of both the River Hawks (13-22, 5-7) and the Binghamton Bearcats (15-17, 5-7).
The one thing about this spring has been the weather these teams have played in. It has been a cold and rainy spring. Last weekend was a prime example. Games were played in conditions that you would do everything to avoid. But because of the tight schedules that every team has to operate with, these games went on as planned. It is life in the northeast when it comes to college baseball, so here’ hoping that spring has finally arrived for these teams.
While conference baseball was on the docket for six of the league teams, the current leader of the league was playing a non-league series against Wagner from the Northeast Conference. NJIT (18-16, 7-2) split the two games played at Yogi Berra Stadium. In their 6-5 win on Friday, they would walk it off on a Jack Stead two-run single down the left field line off of Wagner’s relief pitcher, Michael Cunningham. It would make a winner of Colin Kidd (2-1), who went two innings, giving up two hits and an unearned run. On Tuesday night, five pitchers combined on a four-hit shutout as the Highlanders defeated St. Peter’s 9-0. Now comes the tough part of the schedule for NJIT as they begin a seven-game road trip at Binghamton. By the way, NJIT is 5-10 on the road this year.
The weekly awards all come from the same team, as Maine swept all three awards. The Player of the Week is junior outfielder Brody Rasmussen. In the sweep of UAlbany, Brody batted .545, slugged .727, had six hits, seven runs scored, four RBI, and one extra base hit, which was a triple. He had two 3-hit games in the series. This is his first career weekly award.
The America East Pitcher of the Week is Gianni Gambardella. The junior went six innings, allowing just one hit, zero runs, zero walks, and had four strikeouts. He never allowed a runner to get to second base in those six innings. This is Gambardella’s first weekly award.
The America East Rookie of the Week is Evan Menzel. He hit .455 with a .538 on-base percentage and had two multi-hit games over the weekend. One was a 3-hit game, while the other was a 2-hit game. This is Menzel’s first career weekly award.
This weekend’s schedule includes NJIT at Binghamton, UMass Lowell at Bryant, and UMBC in Maine. UAlbany plays non-conference baseball at home this weekend with Eastern Michigan. That series starts on Thursday afternoon.
We hope that everyone has a Happy Easter Sunday!!
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