Stony Brook, N.Y.-- The seeding held true on the first day of the 2011 America East Baseball Championship at Stony Brook's Joe Nathan Field. Two-seed University of Maine and top-seeded Stony Brook each won games on Wednesday, while third-seeded Binghamton University and fourth-seeded University at Albany face elimination in the double-elimination, four-team tournament.
Day two of the tournament features an elimination game at 11 a.m. when Binghamton faces Albany. At 3 p.m., Stony Brook and Maine will play for a bid to the championship game.
In the first game of the day, Maine junior right-hander Keith Bilodeau (10-2) threw a complete game, six-strikeout outing to lead the second-seeded Black Bears to a 4-3 win over third-seeded Binghamton, Maine's first tournament win since 2007. Bilodeau scattered seven hits, allowed two earned runs and walked just one batter.
Later in the day, in what early on looked like it would be a pitcher's duel, Stony Brook cruised past Albany by a 14-2 score. Sophomore outfielders Tanner Nivins and Travis Jankowski combined for six hits, five runs and five RBIs, while America East Pitcher of the Year Nick Tropeano struck out 12 Great Danes to move to 12-1 on the season. The 12 wins mark a new America East single season record.
Binghamton started the scoring in the top of the third. All-rookie outfielder Bill Beresziewicz singled to second base, and advancing to second on a fielder's choice and third on a passed ball. Junior first baseman Dave Ciocchi scored Beresziewicz on a single up the middle. The Black Bears limited the Bearcats to just the one run after throwing Ciocchi out at second base trying to steal.
Maine retaliated with two runs in the bottom half of the inning. Ian Leisenheimer started off the inning with a walk, and Colin Gay followed with a single to right center on a hit and run to advance Leisenheimer to third. Freshman Troy Black picked up an RBI with a single to center field. After Taylor Lewis advanced the runners on a sacrifice bunt, Mike Fransoso hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score Maine's second run of the inning.
Bearcat senior Corey Taylor scored the first of his two runs in the fourth inning, tying the game at 2-2. He singled to centerfield, advanced to third on a Jeff Skelhorne-Gross single and continued home when Bilodeau balked.
Bilodeau retired the next 15 Binghamton batters, while Maine tacked on two more runs. Fransoso led off the sixth with a single into right field, and first-team all-conference outfielder Joey Martin sent a sacrifice bunt down to third to move Fransoso over. Tyler Patzalek singled into centerfield and advanced to second base on a throw to home plate at Fransoso registered Maine's third run. Binghamton starting pitcher James Giulietti eliminated any further threat in the sixth inning by striking out both Justin Leisenhimer and Alex Calbick, both swinging.
As Bilodeau continued to cruise, Lewis led off Maine's half of the eighth inning with a triple deep over Pete Bregartner's head in right field. After Fransoso popped up to shortstop, Martin sent a deep shot to left field which Binghamton's Taylor caught in foul ground, but was too deep to catch Lewis from tagging up and scoring the Black Bears' fourth run.
With two outs and nobody on in the top of the ninth, Binghamton didn't go down quietly. Taylor started the rally by drawing a walk, and then Skelhorne-Gross reached on an error by Fransoso at shortstop. Jordon Smucker recorded the Bearcats' first hit since the fourth inning by shooting a pitch into right field, scoring Taylor. The next batter, Bilodeau got Daniel Nevares to an 0-2 count before Nevares lined a pitch off Bilodeau's shoulder and glove. The ball bounced back to the catcher Patzalek who recorded the 1-2-3 out to end the game.
Giulietti (5-6) pitched all eight innings for the Bearcats,
striking out six and surrendering four earned runs.
Stony Brook and Albany were tied at 1-1 through 5.5 innings with both starting pitchers, Tropeano for Stony Brook and Dave Kubiak (6-7) for Albany, controlling the pace of the game.
The Seawolves tagged Kubiak for three runs in the home half of the sixth inning with four hits, sparked by sophomore first-team all-conference second baseman Maxx Tissenbaum's double. Senior Steve Marino reached base after getting hit by a pitch. Nivins follows with a triple to deep centerfield on a 1-2 pitch to send home both Marino and Tissenbaum. Jankowski hits an infield single which scores Nivins.
Kubiak got out of the jam by inducing a flyout to Josh Mason and striking out Pat Cantwell.
Stony Brook exploded for seven runs on six hits and one error in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Seawolves batted around in the inning. After Pat Cantwell doubled to left center to drive in the sixth run of the inning, reliever Greg Lutton entered for Kubiak. Kubiak finished the day with four strikeouts, 11 runs, four earned runs and two walks in 6.2 innings. Lutton let up an RBI single to Marshall before forcing Player of the Year William Carmona to popup to shortstop and end the inning.
Tropeano finished with 12 strikeouts, three walks, six hits and just one run in eight innings. Freshman Bryan Tatelman pitched the ninth inning, giving up a triple to designated hitter Vincent Martorelli, who then scored on a throwing error to third base on the same play to account for the 14-2 final.