LOWELL, Mass. – For the first time in program history, the UMBC Retrievers are America East Baseball champions. In extra innings, and with the game tied at one, the Retrievers loaded the bases and Zack Bright drew a two-out walk to push across the winning run.
Senior Hunter Dolshun was named Most Outstanding Player of the championship. He went 2-for-4 in the final game with a pair of walks. Dolshun finished the week with six hits in 11 at-bats, totaling a .545 batting average in three games.
With the win, the Retrievers earned their third NCAA appearance in program history and first since 2001. UMBC will participate in the Winston-Salem Regional and face host and No. 1 seed Wake Forest on Friday at 7 p.m. West Virginia and Maryland are the other two teams in the regional, which is a four-team, double-elimination format.
Maine redshirt-sophomore Caleb Kerbs won the Elite 17 Award, which is handed to the student-athlete with the highest GPA participating in the championship game. Kerbs hit .304 in six championship games.
The All-Championship Team was composed of Hunter Dolshun, Matt Chanin, Andrew Casali and Connor Staskey of UMBC, Jeremy Pena, Nick Silva and Justin Courtney of Maine, Jack McClure and Dominic Savino of Albany, Jason Agresti and Jacob Wloczewski of Binghamton, Andruw Gazzola of Stony Brook and Dalton Ruch of Hartford.
UMBC, 2 Maine 1 (10 inn.) – Box Score | Highlights
Jeremy Pena started the game with a leadoff single in the top of the first and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Chris Bec which gave Maine a 1-0 lead. UMBC tied the game in the fourth when Christian Torres hit a sacrifice fly of his own to score Jamie Switalski.
In the seventh inning, the Retrievers were able to capitalize on a base-running miscue by the Black Bears. On a safety squeeze attempt, they completed an unorthodox double play as Jeremy Pena was tagged out trying to score and Lou Della Fera was called out attempting to take third.
After Tyler Schwanz led off the top of the tenth inning with a double that nearly cleared the wall in left-center, Jacob Christian retired three consecutive Black Bears hitters.
In the bottom half of the inning, Mitchell Carr drew a leadoff walk then Andrew Casali laid down a sacrifice bunt to move him to second. Carr advanced to third on a groundout by AJ Wright before Switalski and Dolshun both drew walks to load the bases. Bright drew the Retrievers' third straight walk with two outs to secure the victory.