The University of Maine baseball team has some work to do to ensure a top two finish in the America East standings after being swept at Bryant University in Rhode Island over the weekend.
UMaine has already qualified for the conference tournament, which it will host in Orono on May 21-24.
The top two America East finishers earn first-round byes and the first round will pit the three seed against the sixth seed and the fourth seed versus the fifth seed in a single-elimination format.
Then it becomes a four-team, double-elimination tournament.
The Black Bears had won their last five three-game conference series, going 11-4, but Bryant rallied for 5-3 and 9-8 (11 innings) victories on Friday and Saturday and then pounded out 16 hits in a 9-2 Sunday victory.
Bryant moved past UMaine to the top of the standings with a 13-5 league record. The Bulldogs are 26-16-1 overall.
“Bryant is a very good baseball team and is playing very well,” said UMaine head coach Nick Derba. “They out-executed us in every facet of the game.”
UMaine is now 12-9 in the conference and 19-25 overall. The Black Bears are now in a dogfight for second place and the other first-round playoff bye with the New Jersey Institute of Technology (10-8), Binghamton (9-9) and University of Maryland Baltimore County (8-10).
UMaine already owns the tiebreakers vs. NJIT and UMBC by going 4-2 and 2-1 against them, respectively.
Binghamton won two of three from UMaine in Vestal, New York in March but UMaine will host the Bearcats in a three-game set this weekend. Games times will be 3 p.m. on Friday, 1 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. on Sunday.
Those will be UMaine’s final three league games.
NJIT travels to Bryant for three and finishes up at home against 8-13 UMass Lowell; Binghamton hosts 6-12 Albany for three after the series at UMaine this weekend and UMBC visits Albany for three before hosting Bryant.
If UMaine sweeps Binghamton, NJIT would have to win all six of its games to finish second. If UMaine takes two of three from Binghamton, NJIT would have to win five of its final six.
UMaine was without senior second baseman Myles Sargent this weekend due to an ankle injury and redshirt junior first baseman Drew Reynolds was limited to just one game as the result of a hamstring problem. Reynolds was the designated hitter in Friday’s loss.
Sargent leads the team in runs-batted in with 40 and is tied for the lead in homers with seven while hitting .362. Reynolds has a team-high 21 extra-base hits, 14 doubles and three triples and is second in RBIs with 33. He is hitting .301.
“We weren’t good enough,” Derba added about his team’s recent series against Bryant. “Our starting pitchers need to be better and we need shutdown innings from our bullpen. We also left a lot of men on base.”
The Black Bears left 31 runners on base in the series compared to Bryant’s 23.
Derba said he is hoping to have Sargent back “in some capacity” this weekend and to also have Reynolds available.
“We have to take care of business and get on a roll,” said Derba.
In Friday’s opener, Bryant junior designated hitter Brandyn Durand greeted reliever Sebastian Holt with a three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth to supply the Bulldogs with the victory.
A walk and Gavin Greger’s one-out double off starter Colin Fitzgerald put runners on second and third and America East saves leader Holt came on to face Durand, the All-America East second team designated hitter a year ago.
UMaine had erased a 2-0 deficit on Damon Gaither’s two-run homer in the seventh and Aidan Bardi’s solo homer in the eighth.
In Saturday’s 11-inning game, Brody Rasmussen’s run-scoring double in the top of the 11th gave UMaine an 8-7 lead but Durand tied it in the bottom of the 11th with another homer off Holt and Zac Lyons won it with a two-out, RBI single.
Evan Menzel’s two-run homer in the seventh had supplied UMaine with a 7-6 lead but Drew Wyers’ sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh tied it.
Rasmussen and Dean O’Neill also homered for UMaine on Saturday.
On Sunday, Wyers broke a 2-2 tie with run-scoring singles in the fourth and sixth innings. The Bulldogs broke the game open with five runs in the seventh on Charlie Saul’s three-run homer and Gavin Noriega’s two-run blast.
