VESTAL, N.Y. – The No. 5 UMass Lowell baseball team (20-34, 11-13 AE) fell to the No. 1 Maine Black Bears (30-19, 19-5 AE) on Thursday morning at the Bearcats Sports Complex.
 
Junior Fritz Genther (Kingston, N.Y.) and sophomore Brandon Fish (Londonderry, N.H.) each tallied two hits to lead the team. Genther tallied a team-high four RBIs and scored one run. Sophomore Jacob Humphrey (Standish, Maine) and graduate student Robert Gallagher (Mullica Hill, N.J.) each tallied a hit and combined for three runs.
 
Graduate student Matt Draper (Lowell, Mass.) had a strong showing on the mound, throwing 5.0 innings and striking out eight. Freshman Jacob Jette (Franklin, Mass.) went 2.1 innings with two strikeouts and just one earned run.
 
The River Hawks got out to an early lead behind an RBI single from Fritz Genther that scored Jacob Humphrey from second. Maine responded with one run in the bottom of the first to even the score, but Draper tallied his first strikeout of the day. The veteran struck out the side in the bottom of the second in a quick 1-2-3 inning to bring the UMass Lowell offense back to the plate.
 
Robert Gallagher was hit by a pitch before Genther hit a two-run blast into the left field bullpen to give the River Hawks the 3-1 lead and chase Maine's Fitzgerald. Draper struck out two hitters in the bottom of the third, but the Black Bears took a 4-3 lead with two home runs.
 
UMass Lowell had an immediate answer as junior Roddy Hernandez (Jersey City, N.J.) came in to score on Robert Gallagher's double to center field to tie the game at 4-4. Fritz Genther's RBI groundout in the next at bat brought in Humphrey to give the River Hawks a 5-4 lead. Matt Draper continued to pitch well and struck out two more hitters in a scoreless bottom half of the inning.
 
A two-run home run in the fifth gave Maine the 6-5 lead. The Black Bears tacked on three runs on two hits in the sixth to push the lead to 9-5. Jacob Jette took over on the mound and ended the inning with a strikeout. The River Hawks responded in the seventh thanks to senior Trey Brown's (Rochester, N.Y.)  two-run home run to left field, cutting the lead to 9-7. Jette threw a quick 1-2-3 bottom half of the inning to send the game into the eighth.
 
Maine tacked on a run in the eighth to take a 10-7 into the ninth as the River Hawks were down to their final three outs of the game. UMass Lowell went down in order and fell in game three. The River Hawks await their opponent who will be the loser of the Binghamton-UMBC game. First pitch is set for around 7:00 p.m. thursday night.