The University of Maine’s baseball team picked up its first victory over a nationally ranked team since 2018 on Tuesday when it topped No. 22 Boston College, 6-4, in Brighton, Massachusetts..
Because it was a non-conference game, the teams didn’t use their top-of-the-rotation pitchers, but both played their every day starters. The Black Bears still beat an Eagles team that is tied for third in the prestigious Athletic Coast Conference with a 14-7 conference record.
That includes six wins over nationally ranked teams Miami, North Carolina State, Virginia and North Carolina.
Boston College, which is 31-13 overall, has gone 6-6 versus those four teams and nine of the 12 games were on the road.
It is the type of victory that could give the Black Bears a valuable boost of confidence.
They currently find themselves tied for second place in America East with the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Each are 7-5 and trail league leader Binghamton, which is 12-3.
UMaine, 12-24 overall, hosts UMBC for a three-game set this weekend with games at 3 p.m. Friday at 3, Saturday at 1 and Sunday at noon.
Bryant is fourth at 7-8 followed by Albany (5-7), UMass Lowell (6-9) and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (4-11).
The top six teams qualify for the playoffs, but finishing first or second is important because that ensures a first-round bye for the tournament.
A bye enables a team to save its best pitcher to go up against an opponent’s No. 2 starter because the opponent had to use its top starter in the first-round game.
It also saves a team from having to play a single-elimination game on the first day.
It used to be a six-team, double-elimination tournament, but it was recently changed to a six-team affair that switches to a four-team, double-elimination format after two teams are eliminated on the first day.
The tournament will be played at Binghamton’s Bearcats Baseball Complex in Vestal, New York.
The Black Bears have extra motivation this season.
Last season, UMaine hosted the tournament but went in as the fourth seed and was quickly dispatched by Albany 6-4 on the first day.
The previous season, the Black Bears entered the campaign as the defending champs but didn’t even qualify for the tournament, finishing last in the seven-team league.
What is fascinating about this year’s team is there isn’t one position player on the roster who was on the 2024 roster. Not one!
The only four players back off that 2024 team are pitchers Gianni Gambardella, Jason Krieger, Owen Wheeler and Sebastian Holt.
That is the nature of college sports these days, although this would be an extreme case.
Everyone in the starting lineup against BC was in his first or second year at UMaine.
The Black Bears have positioned themselves in good shape to finish first or second.
Nine of their 12 league games have been on the road so far leaving them with nine of their final 12 at home.
The victory over BC was sparked by UMaine’s two most impactful newcomers: graduate student and Georgia Southern transfer Juju Stevens, the right fielder; and freshman third baseman Troy Carpenter.
Stevens broke a 4-4 tie with a two-run homer in the ninth inning. He had hit a sacrifice fly in the second inning.
It was his 10th homer of the season and followed a one-out base hit by Carpenter which was the freshman’s fourth hit of the game.
Carpenter had singled home a first-inning run and belted his league-leading 11th homer in the third, a solo shot.
Stevens is now tied for second in the league in homers with 10 and in slugging percentage (.628), he is third in runs scored (36), fourth in OPS (On-base plus slugging) at 1.004, fifth in hits with 45 and ninth in batting average (.328).
Carpenter, in addition to leading the league in homers, is tied for first in runs-batted in with 37, sixth in slugging percentage (.559) and 10th in OPS (.952).
Sophomore left fielder Quinn Murphy (.303-3 homers-13 RBIs), freshman first baseman Hunter St. Denis (.284-4-27), senior center fielder Brody Rasmussen (.258-2-15, team-high 8 doubles) and senior shortstop Chris Bear (.254-0-6) are among the other offensive catalysts.
Murphy has a six-game hitting streak (8-for-23), Rasmussen has hit safely in four (6-for-15), St. Denis has a three-game streak (6-for-12) as does Stevens (4-for-13) and Carpenter has seven hits in his last 18 at-bats.
Everything revolves around pitching and there are some positive signs there, too.
Top-of-the-rotation starter Krieger, who missed last season with Tommy John surgery, has a 2.74 earned-run average over his last four starts spanning 23 innings; Vaun Larisa had his best start of the season in his last outing, a 4-2 win over NJIT and relievers Pierce Friedman, Brennan Rumpf and Sebastian Holt have been pitching well of late.
Friedman has allowed only two earned runs over his last 12 innings; Falmouth’s Rumpf has allowed two in his last 10 innings and Holt has had six scoreless outings over his last seven appearances and shares the league lead in saves with four.
In addition, Scarborough freshman Erik Swenson became the first UMaine pitcher to strike out the side this season when he did so against BC. He threw two scoreless innings with four strikeouts and just one hit allowed.
If three-time All-America East pitcher and former freshman All-American Gambardella can string together some consistently solid outings, that would give the team a huge boost.
