The University of Maine’s baseball team’s hopes to finish in the top two in the America East regular season standings and earn a first round bye in the tournament took a massive hit over the weekend.
Graduate student catcher Nicholas Solorzano’s dramatic two-run homer with two outs in the top of the ninth inning rallied the UMass Lowell River Hawks to a 5-4 victory over the Black Bears on Sunday to complete a weekend sweep of the Black Bears in Orono.
UMass Lowell won Friday’s opener 2-0 and held off a UMaine rally to earn a 7-6 victory on Saturday.
It is the first time since March 26-27, 2016, that the Black Bears had been swept at home in an America East series. UMaine had won at least one game in the last 39 league series at Mahaney Diamond.
The River Hawks entered the series mired in a seven-game losing streak.
“It was the most frustrating weekend I’ve had in my Maine career, no doubt about it,” said UMaine ninth-year head coach Derba, who joined the program as an assistant coach in 2013.
“We’re a good team, but we didn’t play well. Good teams play well,” said Derba, whose team was held to 20 hits in the three contests. “We did some things well but we didn’t score enough runs to win the games. We underperformed in a drastic way. What it comes down to it, we had a chance to win baseball games but we didn’t hit at all.”
The three losses dropped the Black Bears from second to fourth place in the conference with a three-game series left at home against Albany at 4 p.m. Thursday, 3 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday.
Binghamton will host the tournament from May 20-23, and is atop the standings with a 15-6 league record. The Bearcats will visit UMass Lowell (9-12) for three this weekend.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County is second at 12-9 and hosts last place the New Jersey Institute of Technology (6-15) for three; Bryant (13-11) is third and has completed its league schedule and UMaine is fourth at 11-10 with Albany bringing a 9-12 mark to Orono.
UMaine does own the tiebreakers against UMBC and Bryant by winning the season series.
The top two teams earn a first-round bye while the No. 3 team takes on the sixth seed and the four seed meets the fifth seed in single-elimination first round games. The two winners join the top two seeds for a four-team double-elimination tourney.
“Second place is not our concern. I would love to be in second place because it would make things easier. But the last two weekends we have shown that we can be a very good baseball team and a very bad baseball team,” said Derba, whose team had taken two of three at Binghamton the previous weekend.”
It’s only loss to Binghamton was an 8-7 11-inning affair in which closer Sebastian Holt blew a save by allowing two runs in the bottom of the 11th.
Holt was victimized again on Sunday as Solorzano walloped his game-winning homer off him.
Solorzano drove in all five River Hawks runs with a double in the fourth inning, a two-run homer in the seventh and his ninth-inning blast which was his sixth homer of the season.
UMaine had led 4-1 on a three-run fifth-inning rally and a sixth-inning homer by Hunter St. Denis, his ninth of the season.
UMaine’s fifth-inning rally featured singles by Shane Andrus and Albert De La Rosa followed by an RBI single by Quinn Murphy, Nic Pepe’s sacrifice fly and a run-producing wild pitch.
UML’s Cal Chance and UMaine De La Rosa each had two singles.
On Saturday, the Black Bears gifted the River Hawks six unearned runs in the fourth inning as a pair of errors proved costly.
A pair of walks started the rally and UMaine pitcher Vaun Larisa committed an error on a bunt to load the bases.
One out later, Joseph DeLanzo hit a sacrifice fly for the second out but the inning was extended when UMaine third baseman Troy Carpenter committed an error.
Zachary Scott then delivered a run with a bunt single, Sean O’Leary hit a two-run single and Brayden Cali hit a two-run triple.
UMaine pulled within one on Brody Rasmussen’s fourth homer of the year, a two-run shot in the sixth inning; Murphy’s two-run single in the seventh and De La Rosa’s sacrifice fly in the eighth. But they couldn’t tie it up.
Rasmussen had a single to go with his homer and teammate Chris Bear singled twice while UML’s Ryan Strand and Scott each had two base hits.
UMaine’s Shane Andrus hit his fifth homer of the season, a solo shot.
In the opener, junior right-hander Alfred Mucciarone tossed a complete-game six-hitter, striking out two and walking two, and the River Hawks scored singles runs in the fifth on DeLanzo’s sacrifice fly and sixth on Chance’s RBI groundout.
UMaine hit into three doubleplays.
Jason Krieger threw seven innings of four-hit, two-run baseball for the Black Bears and he has now allowed three runs or less in his last seven starts and two or less in five.
UML’s Cali and UMaine’s St. Denis and De La Rosa each had two singles.
