Orono, ME - The University of Maine baseball program announced their 2025 schedule on Friday morning, which features a 52-game schedule and 16 games to be played at Mahaney Diamond in Orono, along with the 2025 America East Tournament.
Maine is coming off of a 2024 season in which they went 12-37 and 8-15 in America East games. The Black Bears are looking to return to their championship level play as they were the America East Champions back in 2023.
The Black Bears will look almost entirely different from a season ago as they brought in 10 transfers, 12 freshmen and have nine players returning to action after having missed most or all of last season due to injuries.
On the mound, Maine is looking forward to the return of their championship winning rotation of
Colin Fitzgerald (R-Jr.),
Caleb Leys (R-Jr.) and
Gianni Gambardella (Jr.) as they combined to only appear in 10 games last season, all of which were by Gambardella. The emergence of
Luc Lavigueur (47 K's) and
Gabe Gifford (48 K's) last season gives Maine a number of arms who have starting experience as a Black Bear, in addition to a number of new pitchers in the mix who will all be in the mix for innings on opening day, including junior transfer
Pierce Friedman, who will serve as the Black Bear's opening day closer.
In the field, Maine welcomes back
Myles Sargent who missed the final 12 games on the 2024 season due to injury. In his 11 conference games before injury, Sargent was slashing .474/.535/.658 in 38 at-bats. Along with Sargent, the Black Bears are looking for another step forward from second-year transfer
Zach Martin (.286/.407/.399), junior catcher
Dean O'Neill (.270/.381/.509), and second-year utility man
Will Burns (.244/.368/.337). Similarly to the pitching staff, the Black Bears have a number of new faces that will be getting at-bats out of the gate, including Albert de la Rosa (junior transfer),
Drew Reynolds (junior transfer) and Brody Rassumussen (junior transfer). Reynolds was named the CCCAA Player of the Year and both him and Rassumussen were CCCAA All-Americans. The Black Bears are looking to return to their winning ways, having had a .500 or better record in three of the past four seasons.
The Black Bears open the season up with their usually long road trip as they will play their first 22 games on the road, starting with an opening weekend series at Louisiana Tech on Feb. 14-16.
Maine will travel to The Citadel (Feb. 21-23), George Washington University (Fe, 28-Mar. 2), Bucknell (Mar.7-9), Iona (Mar. 12), St. John's University (Mar. 14-16), Fordham (Mar. 18) and Army (Mar. 19) for their first 19 games on the road in non-conference action.
The Black Bears open up America East action on the weekend of March 21-23 as they take on the Binghamton Bearcats in New York. In their last 10 meetings, Maine holds a 8-2 record over their conference rival, including taking two of three games last season.
Maine plays their home opener on March 25 against Thomas College to kick off a five-game homestand. The Black Bears will host Husson on March 26 before welcoming NJIT to Orono on the weekend of March 28-30. The Black Bears hold the series lead over the Highlanders since they joined the America East for baseball in 2020 (2021 for games due to COVID) with a 8-6 record. The two sides split last seasons series, 1-1.
After a quick one-game trip to Merrimack on April 2, Maine returns to Mahaney Diamond to host UMass Lowell on April 4-6 and Merrimack on April 9 before a three-game road trip to UAlbany on April 11-13. Maine as 2-6 against the Riverhawks and Great Danes last season, but is 17-8 against the two teams since the start of the 2022 season.
After the UAlbany trip, Maine returns home for a four-game homestand against UMF on April 16 and then UMBC from April 18-20 on Easter Weekend. UMBC swept the Black Bears last season, 3-0, but Maine is 8-4 against them since the start of 2022.
Maine embarks on their second-longest road trip of the season from April 25-May 9 as they make stops at NJIT (Apr. 25-27), Boston College (Apr. 30) and Bryant (May 2-4) before returning to Orono for their final conference series of the season on May 9-11 against Binghamton. The Black Bears went 1-2 against Bryant last season, but hold a narrow lead in the series history since Bryant joined the America East in 2023, winning five of the nine matchups.
The Black Bears wrap up the regular season with a three-game series at UConn on May 15-17 before returning to Orono to host the America East Tournament from May 20-24. The top-six seeds in the America East make the tournament with the top two seeds gaining a first round bye.
-UMaine-
