Auburn, ME – CMCC Baseball suffered its first loss of the season in YSCC play, falling to UMaine-Augusta 5-2 on Saturday afternoon. The Mustangs took a two-run lead on Cody Cleaveland's first inning home run, but the offense came up empty from there on. The Moose took the lead late on with four runs in the seventh inning to drop Central Maine to 4-1 in conference action.
Kyle Delano got the start on the mound and had an interesting start to the game, picking off two separate baserunners at first to end the inning.
Lee Robertson led off with a walk for the Mustangs, and Cleaveland continued his hot start to the spring by crushing a two-run home run that not only cleared the left field fence but also hopped the softball fence into right field of their game. The freshman from Richmond, ME joined the team this semester after winning a national championship with the Central Maine men's soccer team in the fall and now has nine extra-base hits and nine RBIs in just nine games.
That would prove to be the high point of the game though, as CMCC failed to manufacture any additional runs and stranded nine runners on base. Things quickly became a pitching duel with Delano recording back-to-back one-two-three innings and Hayden Chase settling in for UMA.
The next run would come in the top of the sixth when the Moose pulled one back. Delano allowed a single and a walk with one out before being replaced by Logan Carpenter. Jacob Plamondon just beat out a potential inning-ending double play, and David Jinks came around to score when first baseman Garren Post mistakenly threw to third instead of going to the plate.
However, it was the next inning when UMaine-Augusta really did their damage. Nolan Leighton and Amar Douidi delivered back-to-back singles to lead things off. Jonathan Campos then singled into center to make it 3-2 Moose. Cash Bizier then smacked an RBI triple and Jinks brought him home with a sac-fly into right field. The Mustangs were suddenly staring down a three-run deficit with nine outs remaining.
Teddy McFarland and Jake Calver both had doubles in the seventh and eighth respectively, but the hosts could not find the timely hits they needed to drive either runner home. McFarland singled in the bottom of the ninth with one out to try and spark a late rally, but Chase finished off a complete game effort by getting Robertson and Zac Gorman to pop out.
UMaine-Augusta improves to 6-10 overall this year, but more impressively has now won four games in a row against YSCC opponents in April. The loss ends Central Maine's own four-game winning streak and drops the team to a 17-9 record.
The two sides are scheduled to face each other again this Sunday, April 13th for the reverse fixture. However, UMA will be using the CMCC turf to stage the game. The Moose would still be the "home" team for that doubleheader in Auburn, which is scheduled to get underway at 5:00 pm.
