ORONO, Maine – The University of Maine baseball team will open postseason play on Wednesday morning, as the No. 5 Black Bears take on the No. 4 seed UMass Lowell River Hawks at 11:00 a.m. at the Bearcats Baseball Complex on campus of Binghamton University.
How to Follow: Every game of the America East playoffs will be streamed on AmericaEast.TV. The Championship game(s) will be broadcasted on ESPN+. Jim Churchill can be heard on the radio waves locally on WGUY 96.1 FM, and nationally on goblackbears.com.
AE Playoff Information
Maine Black Bears vs. UMass Lowell River Hawks
Dates: May 22
Time: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.
Site: Bearcats Baseball Complex
Records: Maine 15-32 (11-12 AE), UMass Lowell (19-34, 12-12 AE)
AE Playoffs
• The winner of Maine vs. UMass Lowell will take on Stony Brook on Thursday at 11:00 a.m.
• The loser will battle of the loser of No. 3 Binghamton and No. 6 Hartford on Wednesday at 6:00 p.m.
• For more info, visit the
America East Championship Central.
About UMass Lowell
• UMass Lowell enters the conference tournament winners of seven of its last eight, including taking two of three from first-seed Stony Brook last weekend.
• Oscar Marchena leads the River Hawks offensively, with a .331 average, 60 hits and 36 RBIs.
• On the mound, Nick Rand has held opponents to a .245 batting average against and 4.43 ERA.
• As a team, UML has a 6.32 ERA and a .249 batting average.
The All-Time Series
• Maine is the only team to sweep UMass Lowell this season.
• Overall, the Black Bears lead the all-time series by a mark of 15-5
Notable Streaks
•
Hernen Sardinas has extended his on-base streak to 12 straight games. His season-high is 16.
•
Ryan Turenne has reached base in 10 consecutive games.
AE Awards
• On Tuesday night the America East will announce all-conference.
• Stay tuned for updates.
Back in Business
• On May 16, 2018, now redshirt-senior
Caleb Kerbs was diagnosed with non-seminoma testicular cancer.
• Kerbs missed the rest of the season, undergoing surgery on May 25.
• Check out 'Strikeout the Stigma' on goblackbears.com for more info
The Bear Facts
• Maine boasts six seniors, six juniors, seven sophomores and 12 freshmen among its roster of 32 players.
• Maine was tabbed to finished fourth in the America East Preseason Coaches' Poll.
• Six Black Bears return in 2019 that have started at least 30 games, including
Hernen Sardinas,
Cody Pasic,
Danny Casals,
Kevin Doody,
Caleb Kerbs and
Colin Ridley.
• The Black Bears return three America East all-conference selections in
Danny Casals (first team),
Hernen Sardinas (second team) and
Matt Geoffrion (all-rookie). Maine had two players drafted in the 2018 MLB draft, with
Jeremy Pena (3rd round. 102nd overall) and
Christopher Bec (5th round, 146th overall) going within the top 150 picks.
• Maine went 20-34 last season and finished in sixth place in the America East regular season standings with an 12-12 record, before fighting its way to day three of the America East Championship after falling in its opening game.
• Head Coach
Nick Derba enters his third season at the helm of the Black Bears, holding a 45-63 overall record. Maine advanced to the America East Championship game in his first season.
Hall of Famers
• On Dec. 2, 2018, Assistant Coach
John Schiffner and UMaine alumnus Mark Sweeney were both inducted into the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame.
• Schiffner is the winningest manager in Cape Cod League History, coaching the Chatham, A's/Anglers to 541 regular season wins and 16 playoff appearances. He has coached 39 first round picks and over 125 of his former players have reached the big leagues, including Evan Longoria, Andrew Miller, Kris Bryant, and Todd Frazier. Head Coach
Nick Derba played for Schiffner from 2004 to 2006 for the Anglers.
• Mark Sweeney, a 14-year MLB vet, played for seven different teams, ranking second all-time in MLB history with 175 career pinch hits and first all-time with 102 pinch hit RBIs. He still holds 21 school records at UMaine, including, career hits (328), career doubles (66), career home runs (52), career RBIs (211), total bases (568), slugging percentage (.663). He earned All-America honors in. 1988, 1990. And 1991. He was inducted to the Maine Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Sweeney led the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox to back-to-back Cape Cod league titles in 1989 and 1990, earning Cape Cod Playoff MVP honors in 1989.
Legends Weekend
• Maine honored the 1991 team on to campus on the weekend of April 20 when Maine takes on UMass in a four-game non-conference series.
• The 1991 Black Bears baseball team set a school record with 48 wins, winning the America East and ECAC championship. The 1991 Black Bears hosted the most recent NCAA Regional at Mahaney Diamond, falling in the title game to Clemson. Sweeney earned the America East Player of the Year after hitting .387 with a .644 slugging percentage. Larry Thomas was selected as the America East Pitcher of the Year, striking out a school record 108 batters in just 99.1 innings pitched. Both Sweeney and Thomas were elected as All-Americans following the season.
• Maine Softball will honor the ECAC champion 1984 and 1987 teams that same weekend.
The 136th Season
• UMaine is embarking on its 136th season of play with the 2019 season, with the Black Bears first having played during the 1881 season.
• After 135 seasons, UMaine held an overall record of 1978-1579-17 and had made 16 NCAA Tournament appearances and seven College World Series appearances.
• There have been two canceled seasons, with UMaine not fielding teams in 1892 and 1944.
•
Nick Derba is the 25th head coach in program history.
-UMaine-
