America East Baseball News & Notes: It's Tournament Time

Read Time:4 Minute, 5 Second

What started back on February 14 comes down to this. On Wednesday afternoon, the conference tournament of America East begins in Maine. Six of the seven schools have made the trip up north to play for the league title and the automatic bid to the NCAA baseball tournament. The Bryant Bulldogs (33-17-1, 18-6) are the number one seed and head to Maine with a five-game winning streak. NJIT (27-24, 14-10) earned the #2 seed thanks to a series sweep of UMass Lowell. Both of these teams will wait until Thursday to get going. For the remaining four teams, they get started on Wednesday with play-in games to set up the double-elimination format that the rest of the event will follow. Here is how the final weekend went.

For the Bulldogs, they made the trip to Maryland with nothing on the line. It did not stop them from playing as hard as they have all spring. The sweep of UMBC gives Bryant a real shot at repeating as the conference’s tournament champs. After taking the first two games by a combined count of 17-1, Game 3 would be won in the top of the ninth. With the score tied at 10-10, and runners on first and second, Charlie Saul singled up the middle against Ayden Gonzalez (3-1) to score Eliot Medlock to give the Bulldogs an 11-10 lead. Ty Davis, who went two innings of one-hit baseball, picked up the win (1-1). For UMBC, their season is not done as they get the chance to play on thanks to the River Hawks losing all three games in New Jersey.

For the Highlanders, the eighth inning was their lucky inning. In each game with UMass Lowell, the games would be tight until the eighth inning. Twice, the River Hawks had leads into the bottom of the eighth only to Have NJIT score runs to either take the lead or extend a lead. In the eighth inning alone, the Highlanders outscored the River Hawks 13-1. It would be the differences in the series, and mean the UML would not be making the trip to Maine as they would finish in last place with an 18-35 record and 8-16 in the league.

Binghamton (25-23,13-11) and UAlbany (20-30,1-14) played a wild three games in upstate New York. The Bearcats took the first two, winning Game 2 in walk-off style by getting four in the bottom of the ninth. Three of those came on one swing of the bat. A Logan Haskell three-run bomb to left field off of Great Danes reliever Tyler Kneller (1.1 IP, 5 H, 7 R, 6 ER) was the game-winning hit. The Great Danes would take Game 3 by an 11-5 score. 2nd baseman Luke Myers had a four-hit game, and RF Jared Toby had a three-hit game. The top five hitters in the UAlbany lineup went a combined 13-for-24 with six runs scored and nine RBI.

Maine (20-30, 13-11) did not play conference baseball last weekend. Instead, they went to Storrs, CT, and were swept in a three-game series by the Connecticut Huskies. The Black Bears, who will host this tournament, will do so trying to stop a four-game losing streak.

The final weekly awards in America East go like this. The Player of the Week is NJIT’s Mason Wolf. He hit .636 and slugged 1.000 in that series with Lowell. He extended his hitting streak to 16 games and also has a 12-game multi-hit game streak. He is hitting .399, which leads the team.. This was his first weekly award.

The Pitcher of the Week is NJIT’s MT Morrissey. He threw a complete game vs the River Hawks and struck out a career high 11 in the 4-2 win. He allowed six hits, two earned runs, and two walks, and threw 112 pitches to get the win. The complete game was his third of the year, and they are the only complete games for the staff. This was Morrissey’s second weekly award.

The America East Rookie of the Week is Bryant’s Cam Papetti. He went 4-for-9 with four HR, eight RBI, and a 2.349 OPS. He hit two home runs on Thursday, then in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, he hit two more. For May, Papetti is 7-for-21, with all seven hits being home runs. He finished the season hitting .298 with seven HR, and 15 RBI in league play. This was Papetti’s first weekly award.

The tournament begins on Wednesday afternoon with Maine taking on UAlbany at 1 PM. Binghamton takes on UMBC at 5 PM. The America East tournament continues on Thursday and will run through Saturday afternoon.