UMPI Owl softball team thriving
as spring road swing continues
The University of Maine at Presque Isle softball team’s terrific start to the season continued with seven wins in eight tries in recent play.
The Owls, in the midst of their spring break trip, took a 10-2 record into yesterday’s doubleheader against Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, Va.
The recent successful stretch began with 14-4 and 18-0 victories over Wheelock College of Boston in games played March 19 in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Both games were called after five innings due to the 10-run rule.
Sara Packard went 3 for 3, including a pair of home runs, and drove in four runs to lead the Owls in the game one win. Katie Patenaude and Dinah Bilodeau each collected three RBIs for the winners.
In the second game, Bilodeau knocked in five runs and joined teammates Amanda Allen and Nicole Marruci as repeat hitters as UMPI eased its way to another win.
On March 20, the Owls split a twinbill with Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Mass., dropping the opener, 2-0, before coming back to win the second matchup, 8-4.
Patenaude registered UMPI’s only hit in the first game, a sixth-inning double, but she was left stranded at second base. The Owls benefited from the wildness of the Buccaneers’ Carli Thomas in the nightcap. She walked 14 batters and Patenaude was UMPI’s hitting star with three hits and three RBIs.
On Saturday, UMPI traveled to New York to take on St. Joseph’s College of Brooklyn. Both games of the doubleheader were close, but UMPI prevailed each time, 3-1 and 4-3.
In the opener, Dalynn Jacobs had an RBI double in the fourth inning to drive in the Owls’ first run. Marucci drove in Allen with a fifth-inning single to make it 2-0, but the host Bears cut the lead in half in the bottom of the inning for the only run off Owl starter Packard, whose finishing statistical line included nine strikeouts, one walk and five hits allowed. Allen’s second hit of the game delivered Patenaude for the third and final UMPI run in the sixth.
The Owls trailed 3-1 after four innings before Packard ripped a two-run double to tie the score in the fifth. In the top of the seventh, Carly Bell reached on a single and was driven home on Patenaude’s double. Packard went the distance on the mound, striking out five, surrendering just one walk and allowing six hits.
On Monday, UMPI picked up a pair of easy triumphs over the College of New Rochelle in New York, 18-1 and 23-1.
UMPI wraps up its trip with doubleheaders at Mary Baldwin in Staunton, Va. today, at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, Pa. Thursday and at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland Saturday.
The Owl baseball team split doubleheaders against Anna Maria College in Northborough, Mass. March 19 and 20, but lost a single game to Eastern Nazarene and both ends of a twinbill against St. Joseph’s of Brooklyn, N.Y. to begin their spring break trip.
UMPI carried a 4-13 record into Tuesday’s scheduled game against Lebanon Valley in Annville, Pa.
In the March 19 victory, which followed a 5-1 game one loss, the Owl rallied from four runs down entering the seventh inning to pull out a 10-9 victory. UMPI forced extra innings thanks to a Solomon Fast RBI double and three other runs coming across thanks to Anna Maria errors.
Each team scored three times in the eighth and UMPI plated a single run in the top of the ninth, with relief pitcher Saul Nunez then notching the win by getting out of a jam and holding Anna Maria scoreless.
In the March 20 doubleheader, the Owls won the first game, 10-3, with Adam Begos, Ryan Saunders and Jacob Powell pacing the UMPI offense with two hits each and Matt Curry going the distance on the mound for the pitching victory.
UMPI fell in game two, 3-2, despite a strong pitching performance by Nunez, who gave up just two earned runs and four hits in the complete game.
On Friday, coach Mike Pankow’s Owl squad was blitzed by Eastern Nazarene of Watertown, Mass., 15-2. Matt Cauchon had two hits and drove in one of the two UMPI runs.
Cauchon drilled a pair of home runs, but it wasn’t enough as UMPI lost to St. Joseph’s Saturday, 15-10, in the second game of a doubleheader. Ryan Sanderson contributed a three-run homer for the Owls.
In the first game, UMPI was limited to four hits by Bears’ starting pitcher Rosario DiLorenzo in a 4-1 loss. Nunez again pitched well for the Owls in the defeat. Curry’s RBI triple in the third inning drove in Brady Rowe for UMPI’s only run.
The Owls play two against the University of Valley Forge in Phoenixville, Pa. today, then have single games Thursday and Friday against McDaniel College of Westminster, Md. and Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. The busy trip ends with doubleheaders against Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in East Elmhurst, N.Y. Saturday and New England College in Henniker, N.H. Sunday
