The University of Maine men’s baseball team will be hosting and playing in next week’s America East Conference tournament, but is still waiting to see where it will finish in the regular season standings.
The Black Bears jumped out to lead the America East earlier in the season, but have stumbled a bit as of late in conference play and dropped five of the last six games against Binghamton and Bryant universities.
UMaine still sits in second place heading into a non-conference series against the University of Connecticut, but the Black Bears’ tournament seeding is now out of their hands. Binghamton and NJIT could both leapfrog over UMaine depending on how their respective weekend series go.
“We had some opportunities over the last two weekends to win one more game, and really go into this weekend knowing where we’re going to be — really being able to set ourselves up for a potential bye,” UMaine head coach Nick Derba said Thursday. “But we’re not there. We’re kind of in limbo as far as what this weekend can accomplish.”
UMaine kicks off this last regular season series against UConn on Thursday at 6 p.m. And while winning is always the goal, Derba said the focus of the three game series against UConn will be setting the pitching staff up to be prepared for a potential four-game conference tournament and getting the offense in a better position after some recent struggles.
“This is really a weekend we want to win, but it’s really a weekend to get right, and get prepared,” Derba said.
Because these next three games are against a non-conference opponent, their outcome won’t impact UMaine’s positioning in the America East tournament.
That positioning will be particularly important because the top two seeds receive a bye and don’t have to play until double-elimination action gets going next Thursday. But if UMaine slips below that second spot, it will start the tournament with a single-elimination play-in game on Wednesday.
“We’re assuming the worst as far as our seeding goes,” Derba said. In that worst case scenario, the team would have to win four games next week to win the conference tournament.
As a result, Derba is looking to set his pitching staff up over the weekend to be prepared for all four tournament games. That means rest for players like starting pitcher Caleb Leys, who Derba doesn’t plan to use in game action over the weekend after Leys experienced some tricep tightness. But Derba expects Leys to be able to start on Wednesday if a play-in game is necessary.
Leys probably could pitch this weekend if needed, Derba said, but the coach doesn’t see anything to gain for Leys or the team by doing that ahead of the tournament. Derba said he will always be extra cautious with a player’s health.
He plans to use the weekend series against UConn to experiment with his pitching staff and see how they can fit pieces together to get through a four game tournament.
“We need eight arms to go out and throw the ball very well,” Derba said about that tournament action.
The Black Bears offense will need to come alive as well, with the team “not swinging the bat well in any capacity” according to the coach.
He’s hoping the UConn series provides a chance to build team confidence and make sure the Black Bears are ready to go when the conference tournament gets underway next week.
The American East tournament will be held at Mahaney Diamond in Orono and the first game will be at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 21. That matchup will feature the fourth and fifth seeds.
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