After suffering a frustrating 1-0 setback in their America East tournament opener to Stony Brook on a two-out, ninth-inning homer by Bobby Honeyman, the University of Maine baseball team bounced back impressively to thump the University of Maryland, Baltimore County 11-1 in an elimination game on Wednesday night.
Maine (20-34) will play the lowest seeded one-loss team in an elimination game on Thursday at 7 at LeLacheur Park in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Fifth seed Albany, an 8-5 winner over UMBC in Wednesday’s opener, plays top seed Binghamton (27-23) at noon on Thursday and No. 3 Stony Brook (25-25) plays No. 2 Hartford (36-16) at 3:30 p.m.
In the nightcap, sophomore righty John Arel tossed eight innings of two-hit baseball, posting a career-high 11 strikeouts, and his mates backed him with a 15-hit attack.
The only run off him was unearned. Jake Marks finished up.
Senior Brett Chappell paced the attack with four hits, including a double, and freshman Colin Ridley had three hits and three runs batted in.
Jeremy Pena and Danny Casals each had two hits as did Kevin Stypulkowski.
The Black Bears wasted little time getting on the scoreboard, pushing across a pair of first-inning runs to take a lead they would never relinquish.
Chappell doubled and Pena reached on a bunt single although Chappell wasn’t able to advance.
Ridley grounded a single to right and when right fielder Raven Beeman mishandled the ball, Chappell scored.
One out later, the Black Bears worked a delayed double steal as Pena crossed the plate while before Ridley was tagged out in a rundown between first and second.
Chappell again triggered a two-run rally in the third inning when he singled and he moved to second on Pena’s sacrifice bunt.
Pena was originally called out at first but the umpires conferred at the request of Maine coach Steve Trimper and the call was overturned.
Casals put down a sacrifice bunt and when third baseman Jamie Switalski made an errant throw, both runners scored.
The Black Bears put the game away with six runs in the fifth.
Pena grounded a single to center, stole second and moved to third on Casals’ single to left. Casals scampered to second on the throw to the plate and both scored when Ridley pulled a single down the first base line.
Ridley stole second, went to third on Kevin Stypulkowski’s base hit and score on Tyler Schwanz’s sacrifice fly.
Second baseman A.J. Wright dropped a popup, allowing another run to score, and Chappell lined an RBI single to right center before another delayed double steal produced the final run.
In the opener, sophomore third baseman Honeyman gave himself a memorable 20th birthday present.
Honeyman belted his first career home run in the the 96th game of his career and the homer was just the fourth hit of the day for the Seawolves.
Black Bears freshman closer Nick Silva had retired all eight hitters he faced until the left-handed hitting Honeyman launched on 0-1 pitch over the fence in right field.
The homer extended Honeyman’s hitting streak to 10 games.
The Black Bears’ inability to hit in the clutch, which has plagued them all season, came back to haunt them again. They were shut out for the fourth time and held to two runs or less for the 23rd time this season.
The Black Bears had six hits but went 1-for-11 with men on base and 1-for-5 with men in scoring position. Maine stranded eight baserunners.
Maine got the leadoff hitter on base just once in the game and that came in the sixth inning when Pena reached on an infield single to third.
Ridley and Chappell had two-out doubles in the fourth and seventh innings, respectively, but were stranded.
The game featured a pitchers’ duel between senior right-handers and All-America East first-team selections Logan Fullmer from Maine and Chad Lee of Stony Brook.
Fullmer allowed three hits over 4⅓ innings before he apparently pulled a muscle in his side and was replaced by senior Jake Marks. Fullmer struck out three and walked two.
Marks came on with a runner on second and induced a pop up before lefty Connor Johnson replaced him and struck out left-handed hitting Andruw Gazzola.
Johnson walked Honeyman to open the seventh and Silva was summoned.
Johnson had two walks and a strikeout in 1⅓ hitless innings.
After a sacrifice bunt, Silva struck out the next two hitters and he retired the side in the eighth and the first two hitters in the ninth before Honeyman homered.
Lee allowed five hits over seven innings with two walks and five strikeouts.
Sidearming lefty Teddy Rodliff (1-4) pitched two innings of one-hit ball with four strikeouts and no walks to pick up his first win of the season.
Silva (3-3), struck out three but absorbed the loss and fell to 3-3.
Casey Baker had two singles for Stony Brook while Pena had a pair of base hits for Maine.