After playing 26 of 27 games on the road, the University of Maine’s baseball team will finally play its home America East openers starting on Friday at 3 p.m. when the Black Bears entertain UMass Lowell for a three-game series.
The teams will also play at 1 p.m. on Saturday and noon on Sunday.
“This is the longest I’ve been on the road since I’ve been here. I think I’ve slept in my own bed 16 nights over the last seven weeks,” said UMaine head coach Nick Derba. “I’m glad to be home and not in a hotel.”
UMaine and UML both have non-conference games on Wednesday as the Black Bears were at Merrimack and UMass Lowell was at Stonehill.
UMaine entered Wednesday with a 7-19 overall record and UMass Lowell was 10-16.
Both teams are 3-3 in the conference.
All three games in Orono will be nine-inning affairs, although if a doubleheader is played due to inclement weather, one of the games would be a seven-inning contest.
UMaine has played one home game, a non-conference 12-9 loss to Division III Husson University of Bangor last week.
Derba came to UMaine as an assistant in 2013 and became the interim head coach in 2016-17 and the head coach the following year.
The Black Bears snapped a three-game losing streak by taking two of three games from a New Jersey Institute of Technology team that had won its first three league games.
“We keep getting better. We’re throwing more strikes. We want to be playing our best baseball at the end of the year,” said Derba, whose Black Bears will be hosting the America East Tournament on May 20-24.
The strength of the team is its three-man starting rotation composed of former all-league selections Colin Fitzgerald and Gianni Gambardella, and all-rookie team selection Caleb Leys who was impressive at NJIT.
Fitzgerald and Leys missed all of last season due to injury and Gambardella was sidelined for five weeks with tendonitis.
Fitzgerald tossed a complete game in last Friday’s 12-4 win, allowing 11 hits and four runs with 10 strikeouts and no walks. He picked up the win and is now 4-2.
Leys had a career-high 12 strikeouts and allowed just one earned run and six hits over seven innings as UMaine triumphed 7-3 in the second game. He walked only one and evened his record at 1-1.
Sebastian Holt tossed two innings of two-hit shutout relief with three strikeouts and a walk.
Gambardella had his longest outing of the season in game three as he went 5 ⅓ innings and surrendered six hits and two earned runs with seven strikeouts in the 2-0 loss. He absorbed the loss and is 1-2.
“It was good to see those guys throw well,” said Derba.
NJIT pitchers Brandon Peterson and Nate DeSchryver combined on a two-hit shutout.
UMaine senior third baseman Myles Sargent had a career day on Friday, going five-for-five with a grand slam homer, two doubles and seven runs-batted in.
He was named the America East Player of the Week as he went 7-for-13 in four games with two homers, two doubles and nine RBIs.
The other two Black Bears who have been swinging the bat well over the last four games have been freshmen.
Designated hitter Aidan Bardi is 4-for-10 and third baseman Evan Menzel is 5-for-14.
“They’re good baseball players,” said Derba.
The pitching staff will be challenged this weekend by the best hitting team in America East.
The River Hawks are hitting .297 and they have scored a league-high 171 runs.
UMaine is sixth in the seven-team league in hitting (.239) but leads the league in homers with 28. The Black Bears have scored 133 runs, which is also sixth.
UMaine has a better earned-run-average (6.54-7.92) and a better fielding percentage (.964-.957).
“It’s a really good rivalry. They have the best offense in the league and they always have a bunch of good arms,” said Derba.
UMaine is 4-3 in the last seven meetings vs. Lowell, six in Lowell and one in Vestal, N.Y., during the 2023 America East tournament.
The last time UML came to UMaine was 2023 and UMaine swept the River Hawks (6-3, 9-8, 9-3).
UMass Lowell has three of the top 10 hitters in the conference in Brandon Fish (.413, 1st), Scott Donahue (.352, 7th) and Alex Luccini .330, 10th) while UMaine’s Leys (4.00) and Fitzgerald (4.08) have the fourth and fifth-best earned-run averages.
Fitzgerald’s 36 strikeouts are second in the conference and Leys is tied for third with 35.
