The University of Maine’s softball team will be hosting the 2024 America East Tournament at its new softball complex while the baseball team will be holding the 2025 America East Tournament at Mahaney Diamond.
America East also announced that Binghamton University will host the America East baseball tournament this spring and the softball tournament in 2025.
It will be the first time UMaine has hosted the America East softball tournament since 2010, and it will be played on the school’s new artificial turf softball field that hosted its first games on March 31, during which UMaine and Albant split a doubleheader.
The field also hosted Maine Principals Association high school playoff games last spring.
The America East softball tournament will be held on May 8-11. The baseball tournament will be played on May 22-25 in 2025.
The Black Bear softball team went 16-39 overall last spring, 4-15 in America East, and was the sixth seed in the six-team double-elimination tournament that was held at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
However, after dropping their opener to third seed Albany, 7-3, the Black Bears beat No. 5 Bryant (11-0), No. 4 UMass Lowell (1-0) and No. 2 Binghamton (6-4) before being eliminated by Albany 5-3.
It will again be a six-team, double-elimination tournament with all six teams being involved.
The softball complex was the first facility to receive a major facelift courtesy of a $90 million gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation. The gift was earmarked for upgrades to all of the facilities.
UMaine is the defending two-time America East regular season baseball champion and the Black Bears won the tournament in Binghamton last spring to earn their first NCAA Tournament berth in 12 years.
Mahaney Diamond was the site for the America East baseball tournament in 2022 and 2018.
UMaine Director of Athletics Jude Killy said in a press release that the school is proud to host the tournaments.
“As the state’s flagship university, our goal is to host as many events as possible and showcase our wonderful university to our community and peers,” he said. “I can think of no better way to support that vision than to host these postseason events here in Orono.”
