UMBC

MANSFIELD, Conn.—The UMBC baseball team dropped both sides of a doubleheader to the University of Maine, 12-1 and 7-6, on Friday at Eastern Connecticut State University Baseball Stadium.

The Retrievers (8-19, 0-6 America East) put up a valiant fight in the second of the two contests, after taking a 6-4 lead in the top of the seventh.  The Black Bears (7-19, 2-4 America East) scored two in the bottom of the seventh to send the game to extra innings and added one more in the bottom of the eighth for the 7-6 win.

Junior Steve Russo started the scoring off in game two with a solo home run to right field in the top of the second inning, and batted in one more in the third in addition to junior Will Delawter’s RBI single that gave the Retrievers a 3-0 lead.  Russo was 3-for-4 in game two with 2 runs scored and two RBI while Delawter was 3-for-4 with one run scored and one RBI.

Maine finally got on the board in the fourth off Joel Barrett’s solo homer, but quickly countered with junior Joe Fowler’s home run in the fifth that gave the Retrievers a 4-1 lead.

The Retrievers added another run in the sixth to take a 5-1 lead before the Black Bears scored three runs in the sixth to cut the lead to one.  An RBI single by senior Steve Gale would score the Retrievers sixth run, before Maine had a two-run seventh inning to knot the score at six apiece and send the game into extra innings, scoring the winning run in the bottom of the eighth.

Junior Tom Schlein (1-1) took the loss for the Retrievers, relieving junior Steve Evans in the eighth inning and letting up the game-winning run as well as two hits in 0.2 innings pitched.  Evans went 7.0 innings with four earned runs, 11 hits, and five strikeouts.

The Retrievers tied the Black Bears 1-1 in the third inning of the first contest of the day, but were blanked for the next six innings, losing the contest, 12-1.

Delawter (0-4) took the loss going 5.0 innings and giving up 14 hits, six earned runs, walking two, and striking out one.  Four Retrievers came into the game in relief, none of which recorded more than 1.0 inning of work, with the Retrievers giving up a combined four runs on three errors during the last three innings.

The Retrievers face the Black Bears in another doubleheader on Saturday with the first game slated to begin at 3 p.m. at Eastern Connecticut State University Baseball Stadium.