Baseball Hosts Black Bears in Three-Game Set
#24 Miami (3-5, 0-0 ACC) vs. Maine (2-6, 0-0 America East)
Roster | Coaches | Schedule | Game Notes
March 2-4, 2018 | 7 p.m. | 6 p.m. | 11:30 a.m.
Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field | Coral Gables, Fla.
CORAL GABLES, Fla. –– No. 24 Miami will play its last weekend of baseball before its Atlantic Coast Conference schedule begins against visiting Maine in a three-game set at Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Field.
The Hurricanes swept last year’s midweek pair against the Black Bears in March of 2017 and have played Maine 78 times in history. Miami owns a 65-13 all-time series lead, including a 52-6 lead at The Light.
The Hurricanes’ last trip to Orono, Maine came in 1992, when Miami swept a three-game series from May 8-10. Miami also made trips to Orono in 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1990, and the two teams have met in Omaha, Nebraska at the College World Series four times – Miami has a 4-0 lead in those CWS contests.
Miami is set to host Notre Dame in its first conference series of the spring from March 9-11, but head coach Jim Morris and the Hurricanes are focused on the Black Bears after Wednesday’s 5-4 setback at FAU.
The Owls took a 4-0 lead in the game’s first inning and held on for the win – part of a trend in the early season struggles that Morris identified in his postgame remarks.
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot in the first inning,” Morris said. “Three of our losses are where we’ve given up a lot of runs in one inning. We’ve got to minimize the damage when we get some guys on base, and give up one run and not four runs, or six runs, or seven runs…that was a big part of the game.”
Despite the loss, Morris said his team did a good job of battling back. Trailing 5-4 late in the game, the Hurricanes put two runners aboard in both of the final innings but could not scrape together the tying run.
“We battled back. I thought we did a good job [battling]”, Morris said. “In the eighth, we had first and third and no outs and one-two-three [in the lineup] coming up. You got to hope you’ll score some runs there.”
Miami’s bullpen sparkled in the defeat. The Hurricanes’ combination of freshman Daniel Federman (1.2 scoreless innings), redshirt senior Cooper Hammond (0.2), freshman Jeremy Cook (0.2) and junior Andrew Cabezas (0.1) allowed just two hits and no runs over the game’s final 4.1 innings.
Federman has a 0.96 ERA in five appearances this season, having allowed just one earned run in 9.1 innings of relief.
