The Bangor Babes captured the Greater Northeast Collegiate Baseball League championship in their first season of existence last summer.
Now, despite a large turnover on its roster, the Babes are just a game and a half out of first place in the Northern Division midway through the season.
Bangor is 5-4 in the three-team division. Waterville leads with a 7-3 record and Augusta is third at 3-5.
Old Orchard Beach, which lost the best-of-three championship series to the Babes a year ago, is atop the Central Division with a 6-2 record. Sebago is 4-5 and South Portland is 2-8.
One of the biggest changes for the Babes this season compared with last is the number of players on the team’s roster. That was a major lesson for General Manager Colton Albertson and Manager Trevor DeLaite.
“Having 27 to 28 players this year has been super helpful,” Albertson said. “We were down to 14 players at the end of last season.”
“Having three to four pitchers was a hard thing, especially on long days where you would be playing a doubleheader. We have 12 to 14 pitchers this year,” Albertson added.
Even though the roster is much larger than a year ago, everyday players still get the number of at-bats they need to improve for their college seasons. That’s because several players may not be available to play on certain days due to a variety of reasons, like work commitments, Albertson said.
The team is hoping to play 22 regular season games before the playoffs, according to Albertson.
The Babes have been paced offensively by Hampden’s T.J Llerena, Ellsworth’s Peter Keblinsky, North Carolinian Noah Simpson, Washington state native and Montana State-Billings player Logan Keller, and Old Town’s Brendan Mahaney.
Infielder Llerena, who plays for the University of Southern Maine, is hitting .371 and leads the team in runs scored with 10. He is second in stolen bases with seven. USM teammate Keblinsky, the Babes’ shortstop, is hitting .364 and has driven in seven runs.
Simpson, a catcher-outfielder who played at Chowan University in North Carolina, is hitting .333 and tied for the team lead in runs batted in with nine. He also has five stolen bases.
Center fielder Keller is hitting .320 with a club-high 10 stolen bases. He is tied for the team lead with nine RBIs.
First baseman Mahaney also has nine RBIs to go with his .235 average.
Llerena, Keblinsky, Mahaney and Bishop have each homered once.
The Babes are hitting .244 as a team but are averaging 6.3 runs per game.
Headlining the pitching staff, which has a solid 2.77 earned run average, is Waldo’s Noah Hurd, who was 1-0 with a 2.84 ERA in seven appearances as a freshman at Husson University in Bangor this spring.
In six appearances spanning 14 ⅓ innings for the Babes, the lefty has allowed only seven hits and no earned runs. He is 2-0 with a save and has struck out 22 and walked just four.
“He has been amazing,” said Albertson, who noted that Hurd has a terrific curveball.
Arizona native and Rogers State of Oklahoma pitcher Christopher Gaudio is 1-1 with a 1.64 ERA and Chesterville native and Thomas College pitcher Brody Walsh and Brewer’s Grady Vanidestine have also had good summers. Walsh is 1-0 with a 1.59 ERA and Vanidestine is 0-1 with a 3.46 ERA.
Vanidestine pitched for Endicott College in Massachusetts, which played in the NCAA Division III World Series.
Mount Desert Island’s Matthew Haney is 1-1 with a 2.25 ERA.
Gaudio plays in the outfield when he’s not pitching and is hitting .222 with four RBIs. But he has an impressive on-base percentage of .488 thanks to eight walks as he has been hit by a pitch six times. Both are team-highs.
Other players who have received significant playing time include second baseman Joseph Wellman-Clouse from Mount Desert Island and the University of Maine at Farmington, Eddington and Thomas College infielder Evan Nadeau, Old Town and Husson University catcher Jackson Lizzotte, and Texan Ayden Hogan from Blinn College in Texas, who catches and can be the designated hitter.
Bangor’s Jonah Baude from the University of Maine Presque Isle is a pitcher who can also play in the outfield.
The top teams in each division receive a first-round bye in the single-elimination playoffs and the second and third place teams square off at the home of the second seed. The winners visit the top seed and the teams that emerge from each division square off in a championship game.
The Babes will host Waterville on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Winkin Sports Complex on the Husson campus.
