Freshman third baseman Troy Carpenter walloped his America East-leading 15th home run of the season and sophomore reliever Brennan Rumpf from Falmouth threw 3 ⅔ innings of scoreless relief as the University of Maine’s third-seeded Black Bears beat second seed the University of Maryland Baltimore County 5-4 Thursday at the America East Tournament at Binghamton’s Bearcats Baseball Complex in Vestal, New York.
UMaine, now 23-30 overall and 2-0 in the tournament, will face top seed and defending Binghamton, 29-20, in Friday’s 1 p.m. winners bracket game.
Binghamton, which earned a first-round bye, beat UMass Lowell 3-0 earlier Thursday.
UMBC, 28-23, and UMass Lowel, 21-30, met in an elimination game on Thursday night.
The winner of the UMBC-UMass Lowell game will play the loser of the UMaine-Binghamton game in an elimination contest at 5:00 on Friday. The championship round begins at noon on Saturday with the if-necessary game to follow.
All-America East Rookie Team selection Carpenter, who entered the game in a 5-for-42 slump, belted a two-run homer to left in the fifth inning after league Rookie of the Year Hunter St. Denis had opened the inning with a base hit.
That broke a 3-3 tie.
Rumpf came on in relief of starter and winner Vaun Larisa with one out in the sixth inning after the Retrievers had pulled to within one on Dylan Melton’s one-out triple and Anthony Masculli’s base hit. He induced a double play grounder to end the inning.
He got another timely double play grounder in the seventh with runners on first and second and one out and he stranded the tying runs in scoring position in the eighth and ninth innings to earn his second save of the season.
He allowed four hits with a strikeout. He didn’t walk anybody.
It was his longest outing of the season.
Senior righty Vaun Larisa earned his fourth win in eight decisions by throwing 5 ⅓ innings of eight-hit, four-run ball. He walked four and struck out five.
UMaine took a 3-0 lead in the first on walks to Nic Pepe, Juju Stevens and Shane Andrus and sophomore left fielder Quinn Murphy’s bases-clearing double to right center.
The Retrievers got a run back in the bottom of the first on America East Player of the Year Ehi Okojie’s sacrifice fly and they tied it with two in the second on Mascuilli’s run-scoring double and Danny Orr’s RBI groundout.
Murphy is on a hitting tear with nine hits in his last 19 at-bats over his last five games with three doubles and eight runs-batted in. He has also scored five times.
Carpenter had a single to go with his homer.
Melton tripled, doubled and singled for UMBC. Mascuilli doubled and singled and Danny Wyatt and Derek Paris each had a pair of singles.
Senior lefty Eddie Sargent took the loss. He is now 5-3.
He allowed six hits and five runs in 4 ⅓ innings with five walks and three strikeouts.
Freshman righty Kailen Hackmann came on and tossed 4 ⅔ innings of one-hit, shutout relief with four strikeouts and two walks.