After a 3-2 loss to St. Joseph’s University on Friday, the University of Maine baseball team scored a combined 32 runs in slugfest wins Saturday and Sunday over the Hawks in Merion Station, Pennsylvania.
Sunday’s 15-13 victory featured an 11-run seventh-inning rally for UMaine, which was three runs off the program record of 14 set in 1965. UMaine has now won six of its last seven games and improved to 9-11 overall while St. Joseph’s of the Atlantic 10 Conference fell to 8-11.
During the last game on Sunday, UMaine was holding a 4-3 lead entering the seventh when it pushed 11 runs across the plate.
Jake Rainess hit a solo homer to start the rally and also had a run-scoring single later in the inning. Jake Marquez had a two-run single; Myles Sargent and Dylan McNary had RBI doubles, Jeremiah Jenkins and Connor Goodman collected RBI singles and an error, a bases-loaded walk and a passed ball produced the other three runs.
The Hawks rallied to within two, but UMaine’s Justin Baeyens pitched two innings of two-hit, one-run relief with four strikeouts to earn the save. South Portland’s Noah Lewis posted the win with six innings of seven-hit, three-run ball. He struck out six and walked one.
Sargent homered, doubled and singled and had two RBIs. Marquez and Goodman each had three singles. McNary, a graduate student who transferred from Villanova, had a homer to go with his double and drove in three runs. Rainess, Jenkins and Ryan Turenne had two hits apiece.
Justin Igoe hit a grand slam and also had a single and finished with five RBIs for St. Joseph’s. Brett Callahan had a double and two singles; Ryan Cesarini and Ryan Picollo each tripled and singled and Nate Thomas, Ryan Weingartner and Luca Trigiani each doubled and singled.
In Saturday’s 17-12 UMaine win, junior second baseman Quinn McDaniel of Eliot went 5-for-5 with two homers and seven RBIs and sophomore first baseman Jenkins went 3-for-6 and drove in six with a grand slam and two singles. UMaine erased 7-0 and 10-5 deficits to notch the win.
UMaine tied it 10-10 in the sixth on McDaniel’s RBI single and Jenkins’ grand slam and McDaniel’s three-run homer in the seventh gave the Black Bears the lead for good.
McNary had a two-run single in the eighth and McDaniel belted a two-run homer in the ninth.
McNary had two base hits and delivered three runs and Rainess singled twice.
Ryan Scott earned the win in relief, teaming with Andrew Ruggiero. Geoff Mosseau and Luc Lavigueur to hurl four innings of five-hit, two-run relief.
Cesarini and Weingartner each had two base hits for the Hawks. Cesarini knocked in a pair of runs.
On Friday, Picollo’s single to left center with two outs in the ninth inning drove in Weingartner from second and gave the hosts the win after UMaine’s Sargent had tied the game in the top of the ninth with a solo homer.
Cesarini’s third-inning RBI double staked St. Joseph’s to a 1-0 lead but Marquez’ RBI single in the eighth tied it. A run-producing wild pitch restored a one-run lead for the Hawks in the bottom of the eighth.
Cesarini had two singles to go with his double and Picollo had a pair of singles for St. Joseph’s. Sargent had two singles to accompany his homer and Turenne singled twice.
Cole Stetzar picked up the win in relief and Baeyens was the loser in relief.
St. Joseph’s starter Will McCausland tossed seven innings of six-hit shutout ball with six strikeouts and a walk. UMaine starter Colin Fitzgerald went six innings and gave up seven hits and one run with three strikeouts and three walks.
Up next: UMaine will return to America East Conference play and open its home schedule against UMass Lowell on Friday at 4 p.m., Saturday at 1 and Sunday at noon at Mahaney Diamond. St. Joseph’s goes to Delaware for a 4 p.m. game on Tuesday
