ORONO — Maine rolled to an easy win in the opening game of its baseball doubleheader Friday. But the Black Bears knew that would be meaningless if they didn’t complete the sweep at Mahaney Diamond.

Maine and Binghamton were sitting at the bottom of the America East Conference standings, both looking to climb up a couple of rungs and hopefully secure a playoff spot.

The Black Bears couldn’t have made things more difficult for themselves, but that just made the 3-2 victory in the nightcap all the sweeter. Starting pitcher Scott Heath surrendered 13 hits but pitched a complete game, coming up with clutch strikeouts when he needed them to strand 11 runners.

Held hitless through four innings, Maine got a jolt from Brett Chappell with a leadoff home run in the fifth and rallied for the win that eliminated the Bearcats (17-21, 6-13 America East) from postseason contention.

“We kept lining out, so I think someone was just hoping we’d get a little blooper to fall through, a little bleeder, and luckily I hit a home run,” Chappell said after driving a 2-0 fastball from Mike Bunal for his second home run of the season.

Catcher Kevin Stypulkowski laced a double that landed just fair down the right-field line to tie the score, and Sam Balzano bounced a bases-loaded single up the middle for the winning run, all in the fifth inning of the seven-inning game. Maine entered the inning having been outhit 10-0.

Stypulkowski, a junior transfer from Miami Dade Community College, also had one of Maine’s four doubles in the first game, knocking in two runs in a 7-1 win.

“I was in a good hitter’s count (3-1) so I was just looking for a pitch up in the zone that I could do something with, and I got it and put a pretty good swing on it,” Stypulkowski said.

“Those are the games that are fun to win. It was huge with the morale and the momentum and energy in our dugout now. It’s great.”

Maine (21-24, 7-9) still had to weather some tense moments.

In the top of the sixth, Heath yielded two singles and a walk to fill the bases with two outs. He had given up two runs in the first inning, somehow survived a four-hit third inning with no runs (leadoff batter Jake Thomas was thrown out at third base trying to stretch a double), and had abandoned a change-up that was ineffective.

Pitching coach J.P. Pyne came out to talk with him in that crucial spot in the sixth inning, and Coach Steve Trimper left him in to face Thomas again.

“I can’t tell you how many times I almost went out to pull him out and I kept saying, ‘He’s our guy, he’s our guy,’ and he just kept grinding it out,” Trimper said of Heath, the team’s senior captain.

“We just wanted to calm him down. Heath gets so tense. He’s a guy that’s on high energy.”

Heath responded by striking out Thomas, one of his seven in the game.

After a leadoff single in the top of the seventh, Heath fanned two more Bearcats and earned his fifth win.

And his most important.

Maine is chasing Hartford and Albany in the conference standings, needing to pass one of them to earn one of four spots in the league tournament. The Black Bears conclude their home schedule with a 4 p.m. game Saturday against Binghamton and travel to play three games in Albany next weekend. They need to win two of the four to lock up a playoff berth.

“Every game we play right now is a must-win, but I think we’re doing a good job of not putting that pressure on ourselves,” said Chappell, a shortstop.

“In the seventh inning, my heart was racing because it seemed like a two-hour inning,” he said. “That’s why Heath is our team leader. He was everything for us tonight.”