LOWELL, Mass. – The UMass Lowell baseball team (12-19, 4-5 AE) fell to the Maine Black Bears (8-20, 4-5 AE) 5-2 in game one of the weekend series on Friday night.
Sophomore
Michael Simes (Rutland, Mass.) was stellar in his third start of the year. Simes went 7.0 innings with six strikeouts, four hits and one earned run. Senior
Zach Fortuna (Newburyport, Mass.) looked sharp on the bump and went 1.0 inning with two strikeouts.
Senior
Trey Brown (Rochester, N.Y.) tallied two hits and drew one walk on the night. Juniors
Alex Luccini (Hopedale, Mass.) and
Conor Kelly (Hopkinton, Mass.) and graduate student
Ryan Proto (Centerville, Mass.) each tallied one hit. Proto added an RBI on the night.
Simes started the game well retiring the side in order in the first and striking out one in a 1-2-3 second inning.
Ryan Proto hit a double in the bottom of the second to put runners on second and third with no outs.
Conor Kelly scored on a wild pitch to give UMass Lowell the early lead. Simes threw another 1-2-3 inning in the third, recording his third strikeout of the day.
With a runner on first in the fourth, Simes struck out Maine's Jenkins and Proto threw out a runner at second for two quick outs. The sophomore tallied his fifth strikeout of the night to end the fourth inning. Kelly doubled down the right line to start the bottom of the fourth and advanced to third on an error. The junior came in to score on a sacrifice fly from Proto to make it 2-0 River Hawks.
Michael Simes continued to dominate on the mound, throwing a fifth straight hitless inning.
Maine tallied their first hit of the night in the sixth, but Simes forced a groundout to end the inning to keep UMass Lowell ahead by two. Maine got on the board in the seventh with a two-out single to cut the lead to one. Freshman
James Capellupo (Hilton, N.Y.) took over on the mound in the eighth inning with a 2-1 lead. The Black Bears took the lead in the eighth with four runs on four hits.
Zach Fortuna took over for the ninth and struck out two in a scoreless frame to give the River Hawks another chance to get a result. UMass Lowell went down in order and fell 5-2 in game one.
Game two is set for 1:00 p.m. at LeLacheur Park on Saturday, April 13.
