Lowell, Mass. – UMBC and Maine will meet in the 2017 America East Baseball Championship Game on Sunday, May 28. The Retrievers advanced through the winners' bracket with a win against Albany on Saturday. It is their second Championship Game appearance in three years.
Maine advanced to their first Championship Game since 2013. They have won four straight elimination games after losing their opening contest to Albany.
UMBC 9, Albany 4 – Box Score | Highlights
The Retrievers' bats got hot early and never cooled off. 2017 Rookie of the Year Christian Torres unleashed a three-run home run in the bottom of the first as part of a four run inning. J.T. Genovese was removed after one inning and UMBC struck again in the third. They pushed five runs across in the frame with Torres, Collin Stack, Raven Breeman, Andrew Casali and A.J. Wright all tallying RBIs. Matt Chanin settled in on the mound, throwing a complete game shutout. He struck out a season-high eight batters in the win.
Maine 8, Binghamton 3 – Box Score | Highlights
Two errors in the first frame allowed the Black Bears to jump out to a 3-0 lead. Pat Britt started the scoring for the Bearcats in the third with an RBI single which scored Eddie Posavec. Maine got one back in the top of the fourth when Chris Bec shot a double into left center to send Jeremy Pena around. Binghamton pulled within one in the bottom of the fifth with a pair of sacrifice flies from Jason Agresti and Justin Drpich. In the ninth, Hernen Sardinas singled with the bases loaded and Cody Pasic cleared the bases with a three-run double. Connor Johnson was credited with the win and Cody Laweryson got the save.
Maine 12, Albany 5 - Box Score | Highlights
After Albany jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on several defensive miscues, Maine found ways to score in five of the next six innings. The Black Bears knotted the game at two with a Sardinas RBI single and a Cody Pasic sacrifice fly in the second. They then scored one run in the fourth, added four in the fifth and increased their lead by three in the sixth. Albany's Kevin Donati slid across home on a heads-up play in the sixth but Jeremy Pena went deep in the top of the seventh with Cody Pasic on base. After coming out of the bullpen in the first inning, Eddie Emerson finished seven innings, allowing three runs in the win.
Game 10 will be played Sunday at 1:00 PM on AmericaEast.TV. Game 11 will immediately follow if necessary.
Visit Championship Central for links to box scores and highlights from Saturday's games and watch live and live stats links for Sundays games.