ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine’s Black Bear baseball team ended the regular season in dramatic fashion on Saturday afternoon.
Senior catcher Ryan Turenne’s walk-off grand slam with one out in the ninth inning capped a five-run rally that gave the America East Conference regular season champions an 11-8 victory over first-year member Bryant University of Rhode Island.
UMaine wound up 29-19 overall and 19-5 in the conference, while Bryant finished at 26-23 and 12-12. UMaine shared the regular season title with now-departed Stony Brook last season. The win completed a weekend sweep of the Bulldogs after winning 3-1 on Friday and 6-5 on Thursday.
On Saturday, UMaine trailed 8-4 before starting its comeback on a Connor Goodman sacrifice fly in the seventh.
The Bulldogs had scored three unearned runs in the top of the seventh on Gavin Noriega’s two-run double and John Hosmer’s run-scoring double. Jeff Mejia made it 8-6 with an RBI double in the eighth.
Quinn McDaniel began the ninth-inning rally for UMaine with his second homer of the game third in two games. It was his 14th of the season. One out later, Goodman reached on an infield error and Mike Pratte pinch-ran for him.
Bryant’s Matthew Stansky came on in relief of Toby Scheidt and Nick White of the Black Bears greeted him with a double. Matt McElwain was intentionally walked before Turenne belted a 3-2 pitch over the fence in right field for his third homer of the season.
White went 4-for-5 with a homer and two doubles. His homer was his second of the season.
Jake Rainess doubled and singled for UMaine. Justin Baeyens picked up the win with one inning of hitless, scoreless relief, while Matt Smith tripled and doubled for Bryant and Derek Smith doubled and singled. Each had two RBIs as did Noriega.
On Friday, UMaine sophomore lefty Caleb Leys and freshman righty Gianni Gambardella combined on an eight-hitter and McDaniel walloped a long two-run homer to left center in the third inning that proved to be the game-winner.
Leys, who is now 4-0, tossed five innings of shutout baseball, allowing four hits while striking out eight and walking two. He threw 97 pitches, 55 of which were strikes.
Gambardella allowed four hits and one run with six strikeouts and no walks in notching his second save. He threw 39 strikes among his 59 pitches.
UMaine took a 1-0 lead in the second on singles by Goodman and White and Matt McElwain’s RBI fielder’s choice.
In the third, Rainess tripled off the fence in center field and McDaniel followed with his two-run homer.
Bryant had runners on first and third with no outs in the fifth but Leys pitched out of it thanks to a tremendous diving catch by right fielder McElwain. Bryant scored its run in the sixth on Matt Smith’s base hit and an outfield error and Hosmer’s double down the left field line.
Goodman had two singles for UMaine, which was held to five hits. Hosmer had a single to go with his double and Zac Lyons singled twice for Bryant.
On Thursday, the Black Bears overcame a 4-0 deficit with a five-run rally in the fifth inning and won it in the bottom of the ninth on McDaniel’s base hit which followed singles by McElwain, Colin Plante and Rainess.
The fifth-inning uprising featured a solo homer by Turenne, a two-run homer by Rainess, his 15th of the season, a McDaniel double and a run-scoring single by Goodman.
McDaniel had a double and two singles,Rainess had his homer and single and Plante doubled and singled.
Justin Hackett hit his third homer of the season for Bryant, Jackson Phinney doubled and Jake Gustin had a two-run single. Matt Smith had a base hit and a sacrifice fly.
What’s next: UMaine and second-place University of Maryland Baltimore County will receive first-round byes in the America East Tournament, which gets underway on Wednesday in Vestal, New York, home of the Binghamton Bearcats. UMaine and UMBC were picked fourth and sixth, respectively, in the preseason coaches poll.
There will be two single-elimination games on Wednesday between No. 4 Bryant and No. 5 UMass Lowell (19-33, 11-13) and No. 3 Binghamton (26-21, 12-12) and No. 6 New Jersey Institute of Technology (22-30, 11-13).
UMass Lowell and UMaine will play the lowest-seeded winner on Thursday at 11 a.m. to begin the double-elimination segment of the tourney and UMBC (29-25, 16-8) will face the highest seeded winner at 3. The losers of Thursday’s first two games will play an elimination game at 7 and the winners will play Friday at 1.
