ORONO — The Maine baseball team was doubly troubled Friday.

First came an excruciating four-hour lesson in how to give a game away. Then it was a two-hour sleepwalk through a second loss to Stony Brook before an announced crowd of 539 at sunny Mahaney Diamond.

The scores were 8-5 in 13 innings and 3-1.

Too many errors, baserunners that couldn’t find their way home, batters left swinging in the breeze.

The Seawolves walked away with a doubleheader sweep that left the Black Bears muttering.

“I think it’s only going to take one hit like that to get us going,” center fielder Sam Balzano said. “Once someone gets that big hit for us, I think we’re going to start rolling.”

Maine (9-17, 1-4 America East) let the opening game roll away. Leading 4-1 in the top of the seventh, starting pitcher Justin Courtney appeared to get the third out when Bobby Honeyman struck out on a pitch in the dirt. But catcher Kevin Stypulkowski sailed his throw over first baseman Brenden Geary and down the right-field line.Andruw Gazzola came around from first base to cut the lead to 4-2. Jeremy Giles followed with an RBI single to make it 4-3.

Stony Brook (12-11, 6-2) tied it in the eighth on three infield singles and a squeeze by Johnny Caputo.

Maine had chances to push across the winning run but was foiled by outstanding defense. In the eighth, Geary lifted a fly to medium-deep centerfield that looked like it would score Christian Garabedian from third base. But Toby Handley unleashed a one-hop strike to catcher Cole Peragine, who tagged a sliding Garabedian in the torso.

Maine put runners on second and third in the 10th, but the inning ended when Stony Brook third baseman Caputo dived to his right to snare a Stypulkowski grounder, rose to his feet and bounced a throw that first baseman Casey Baker handled.

Each team scored in the 12th, Maine’s coming when Scott Heath and Brett Chappell doubled to right. Garabedian and Stypulkowski stranded Chappell with groundouts to second, and Stony Brook pounced on relief pitcher Charlie Butler in the 13th, tagging him for three runs after two outs. Handley’s single scored the game-winner; it was his fourth hit of the game.

“I just didn’t execute the pitches I needed to make to get some critical outs,” said Butler, the closer, who also took the loss in a 9-5 extra-innings loss to Albany on Sunday.

“We didn’t play well at the end of the game and it cost us,” Heath said. “We had a bunch of chances to score at the end and we couldn’t do it. It was frustrating for the team to go through this back-to-back weeks.”

In the second game, Heath pitched well and gave himself a 1-0 lead with a first-inning sacrifice fly to plate Balzano.

But he wasn’t able to match Stony Brook pitchers Kevin Kernan and Cameron Stone. The Seawolves scored runs in the second, fourth and seventh innings. Stone sealed the win with three hitless innings, striking out eight.

“We were in a must-win situation. You don’t want to lose two at home,” Maine Coach Steve Trimper said. “He just blew us away. He did his job. He came in and pumped strikes and he pumped it at 92 (mph) right by us. And we just couldn’t catch up to that.”

Stony Brook, the defending league champ, was meticulous in the field, committing no errors. Maine made five in the doubleheader, three by shortstop Shane Bussey in the first two innings of the second game.

Those miscues, and one bad inning by Butler, spelled the difference.

“We’re not blaming a bounce, an umpire,” Trimper said. “There’s too many close ballgames this year. One play is dictating those losses and that’s a problem, that’s an issue. We’ve got to get better at those.”

The teams are scheduled to conclude the series at 1 p.m. Saturday, weather permitting.

 

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